


I Got Spurs (That Jingle Jangle)

by Rodeo_Ro



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Dancing, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Humour, Lots of dancing, Romance, Slow Romance, Then some more dancing, fragments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-01 13:32:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 41
Words: 32,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodeo_Ro/pseuds/Rodeo_Ro
Summary: Deacon's been on his own so long, apathetic, running from his past. He's used to deception, subterfuge and lurking in the shadows. When he meet the Sole Survivor, everything changes for him. After all this time, she drags him out the darkness, into her light. He's finally found another person as capable as himself. A hero. A friend. A partner.PS : I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.PPS : If you're impatient, skip ahead to Chapter 33. Everything before is the slow-burn.





	1. The Vault Girl

**Author's Note:**

> All characters (Except dear old Ro) belong to Bethesda and the Fallout franchise. I claim no ownership over them. I am only an over-zealous, self indulgent fan. Like the rest of you.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr // http://trashmyheart.tumblr.com/

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between missions, Deacon stakes out Goodneighbor. He's about to move on when the girl in the blue vault suit appears.

Deacon surveys the crowd in Goodneighbor. Lonely wanderers, traders and degenerates mingle in the square,  
pushing chems and ammo.The old high rises creak in the breeze above them. He hasn’t seen anything interesting  
in days and the smells of the back alleys are starting to get to him. Cold wind moves through the back streets,  
sending grimy old paper dancing in the neon shadows at his feet. He tugs his sleeves around himself against the  
chill. Time to head back to Daisy’s …

At the gates, something is happening. _Finally_. Deacon catches it in time to see Hancock shove a blade between   
Finn’s ribs. Fresh blood in the streets.“Shit,” he says out loud. “Well at least this place ain’t **_boring_** ,” Daisy muses,   
grinning a little.

Deacon dons his hat, adds glasses and saunters outside. As he rounds the corner he sees the blue vault suit. It   
kinda smacks him in the face, 111 emblazoned across the back. Deacon feels the gravity shift around him. Something   
cold churns inside him. Since arriving in the Wealth, he hasn’t seen another vault dweller breach the surface.

The apparition is female. A ridiculous woman wearing a cowboy hat, neat and clean stands at the gate. She says   
something and Hancock gushes, “Well I can see I’m going to like you already.” Hancock doesn’t really say things like   
that. Ever. His black eyes sparkle a little, stars in the night.

She’s wearing an even more ridiculous little neck tie that looks like it came from the same set as Hancock’s mayor get   
up. They both reek of old world nostalgia. When she speaks, her strawberry-blonde hair bounces in the last of the sun   
shining down into the square through the cracks. Not quite ginger, more rosy, softer. Something like nutmeg. It’s clean,   
thick, healthy. Deacon is mesmerised by the body it has, it almost glows. _Vaults really do wonders for you_ , he thinks.  


 

* * *

 

  
  
She’s out in time for Hancock’s speech. Her face doesn’t do a very good job of concealing her confusion. She’s out of   
place, out of time. So clean, no scars, no burns. There’s a patch of vitiligo under her left eye, but even that is endearing   
instead of filthy like most of the marks scavvers brandish on their faces.

Deacon realises he’s been staring right at her when she suddenly returns his gaze, smiles a lost, lopsided smile in his   
direction. Her eyes burn through his lenses. A deep scan, through his core. Hazel, reddish in some parts, yellow in others.   
Strange and beguiling.They’re dreamy, full of life, _anguish._

_Shit._  He still hasn’t broken eye contact. He wonders if she could be a synth? He turns away, but he can feel her watching   
his back.He’s going to have to switch disguises, be careful, change the accent? _**Ugh.**_ Although, he'd been dying to do the   
whole Home on the Prairie number he'd been working on ...  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  
The hours roll on, beer after beer. Finally Magnolia and the Vault Girl leave the Third Rail. Hancock seems agitated, still at   
the bar, his head in his palms. When he finally lifts it, he laughs, a raspy jovial laugh.

“Shit, Charlie, I’m gonna need something stronger to get me through tonight.” Whitechapel chuckles with him, “I’m sure the   
last thing we had that was anything near strong enough turned you into a ghoul, sir.”

Deacon saunters up to the two of them, now the last at the bar. “Hey, pal. Got any left for me?” Charlie slides a Gwinnit in   
his direction, cold, new. He swigs casually. “So whats with the Vault Girl?”

Hancock smiles at him with a little something tucked behind his eyes, mysterious, unfathomable. When Deacon realises what   
it is, he's a little suprised. “Is that – _affection_ in your cold, black eyes?” he blurts out, semi choking on his beer.  
“Nothing gets passed you, huh? She’s staying at the Rexford for a few days…Lookin’ for work, for help. Think she needs a   
hired gun by the sound of things.” Hancock seems deep in thought, staring down a beer bottle ...  
“You didn’t tell her about everyone’s favourite mercenary in the back?”  
“She’s fresh out the vault. You think she’s equipped to deal with MacCready? Give her a couple days”  
“You mean give **_you_** a couple days _**with her**_ ” Deacon chortles at Hancock’s embarrassment.

  
He decides to end his surveillance for the night, satisfied she wont be going too far. He has a nightcap with the ghoul, then   
heads out to his dirty mattress under Daisy’s counter. He struggles to fall asleep, partly for the night time sounds of   
Goodneighbor and partly to the possibilities of the mysterious new Vault Girl.

 

 


	2. Onwards, Upwards, Outta Goodneighbor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are names for what binds us:  
> strong forces, weak forces.  
> Look around, you can see them:  
> the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,  
> nails rusting into the places they join,  
> joints dovetailed on their own weight.  
> The way things stay so solidly  
> wherever they've been set down—  
> and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
> 
> \- For What Binds Us by Jane Hirshfield

Deacon is still asleep under the counter when Daisy kicks him in the head. “You missed it! Get up!” Daisy is in her  
Sunday best, caps in hand. “Your Vault Girl just came in, bought some bobby pins and promised to clear the library.  
Girl drove a hard bargain, got me to cough up my caps.” Deacon’s watching her count them …  
  
“400? You gone soft in your triple centenary?” Daisy kicks him again. “Can you believe it, she didn’t know what   
_**a ghoul**_ was. Think she crawled out that vault _yesterday_?"  
  
Deacon asks himself that question the rest of the week. _What were they hiding in Vault 111?_ _How’d she escape?  
Silver _ _tongued or just so genuinely lovable?_ Deacon cant figure her out – Is it real? Is it a scam? She’s been disappearing   
down Bobbi No Nose’s place for awhile now, between visits to Hancock. Word on the street is Bobbi is scheming again,   
which shows Vault Girl is either very naive or just as morally bankrupt as the rest of this place …  
  
Back in the Third Rail, Magnolia smiles a little too fondly at her, seems to sing directly to her. Deacon watches her face,  
all the micro – expressions. When she isn’t a shameless flirt, witty, sly, she is painfully genuinely. She taps her feet to   
each new song. Claps with gusto as they come full circle. Exposed - honest. She struggles to hide her emotions. _Still soft._   
He cant pick up any ulterior motives, until she discovers MacCready …  
  
In the murky red lighting, their interaction looks shadier than it should. She manages to get him to lower his rate without  
shooting her, which thrills Deacon. The merc is just a kid, younger than her by almost a decade.  
  
When they’re out in the town, she hustles every person to proposition her. Each new job fulfilled sees a disproportionately  
large sum of caps handed over to her. Mac’s eyes bulge out his head. She is abrupt with him, curt in her answers to personal  
questions. Her demeanour changes slightly, with a new goal in sight. She becomes the boss lady.  
  
  


* * *

 

Two days later, she leaves with MacCready two paces behind her. Deacon is convinced the merc is staring at her ass, even  
more convinced she’s smirking cos she knows it. That suit looks good on her.


	3. Boston Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as all flesh,  
> is proud of its wounds, wears them  
> as honors given out after battle,  
> small triumphs pinned to the chest—
> 
> \- For What Binds Us by Jane Hirshfield

Mac isn’t dumb enough to take them both straight through the city. They keep to the dark corners. Deacon gathers  
they’re heading to that new settlement on the radio waves, straight up through Boston. What that has to do with   
anything, he still cant figure out.  
  
More confusing is the dog that’s been added to the mix. The animal seemed to be waiting for her just outside   
Goodneighbor. It’s overjoyed at the sight of her, running in circles, leaping up at her arms. She chuckles fondly,   
bending down to stroke its long fur. Deacon watches from a distance, feeling concerned for the safety of this soft   
vault dweller and her pooch.  
  
In the shadows her switchblade gleams when the dying sunlight catches it. Her hand is clumsy around it. Not used   
to the commitment required to wield the blade. They’re careful and quiet, which Deacon is grateful for. A fog rolls   
in over the sea, blanketing them in the dark of dusk.   
  
As they reach the outskirts, a super mutant hound rams into the Vault Girl. It’s got her arm in its teeth, clamping down.   
She moans as the blood begins to roll from the holes in her skin. Deacon is impressed when she uses it as a distraction,   
luring the creature in and ramming the blade down into its head. Mac pops it in the noggin twice and the animal keels   
over. He chucks a stim her way, jabs it into her forearm and carries on walking.  
  
For two people who just met, they are strangely in synch. _Two people with a common goal?_ Deacon wonders how long it   
will take the little mungo to move on to the next pay day.  
  
  


* * *

 

  
Sometimes she stops to look through a window or touch an old sign, like she could cry. Her hands shake a little. As if in a   
reverie, her eyes glaze over. Mac has to double back to break her out the daydreams. He always taps her under the elbow,   
“Boss, you okay there?”  
  
She is immediately embarrassed, concealed with anger. But what follows is a deep silence. Deacon can feel her isolation,   
her disconnection from the world around her. He believes this is her first time in the Commonwealth, but still has no idea   
what came before.


	4. The Swan in the Lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and the Vault Girl argue over a single cap and things almost end in shattered bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How significant a part the ever-present  
> threat of violence played.
> 
> \- Walter Dean Myers

She finally gets down to the start of the Freedom Trail after a day in Diamond City. They’re in the area and the   
rumours seem to be getting to her. Folks whispering about synths, about The Institute. She talks to the bot in   
the plaza.  
  
MacCready is sighing, rolling his eyes in the spoiled brat way he does most things. Deacon has noticed he gets   
particularly pissy around machines. He’s _skittish, untrustworthy_. He seems to make Vault Girl’s flying dinglebot   
especially nervous. Vault Girl looses interest in the tour guide, has another one of her moments of recognition.   
She’s looking at the little fountain in front of her, smiling. She fumbles through her pockets for a cap and flicks   
it in quietly. This only infuriates the merc.  
  
They argue and he storms off down the road, rifle in hand. Likewise, she treks up the hill to the pond in the park.   
She throws her arms in the air in a huff, kicking rocks in her midst. Mac is out of sight now. Deacon has to re-adjust   
his scope to see her clearly. She’s squatting next to a corpse pond-side, prying something free from cold dead fingers.

_Fuck. The **swan.**_

Mac realises it as Deacon does. But its too late. She’s at the edge of the sludge, note in hand, totally unaware. The   
disgusting behemoth rises from the water behind her. Mac is sprinting through the commons now, wailing.   
  
“Behind you, boss! Behind you!” his voice cracks under the weight of his terror.  
  
She turns. Everything is in slow motion. Deacon cant see her face. She doesn’t scream. Neither does he – doesn’t   
think he could. They’re both frozen except for MacCready lining up a shot at the bottom of the embankment. The   
creature hoists her up over the water in a tight lumbering fist. She cries out. The beast is crushing her.  
  
The dog springs back and forth, frothing at the mouth. Vault Girl shouts at him to stay back. Deacon’s heart is going   
to explode. _What does he do?_ Blow his cover, save the **_potential_**  asset or stay hidden, let their first real shot at something   
get killed on his watch? _“Just a passer by, sweetheart. Haven’t been following you since Goodneighbor, I swear. Nah  
that’s not me. Stalker-guy. _Creep. Weirdo.” Deacons head runs off kilter.  
  
“ **MAC!** in the eyes!” Vault girl screams with authority “Do it! MacCready! _Uhh_ ” Something pops and she falls to the floor.   
She hits the earth hard, it winds her but she still manages to fumble in the dirt for a weapon, for anything. Weapon in hand,   
she turns to the dog, who goes right for the Achilles “Go, boy! Go! The heel! _The heel!_ ”  
  
The creature is beside itself – not prepared to be on the losing end – which Deacon now understand is their only advantage…  
  
She’s climbing a tree behind the struggling animals, face grimacing, holding her ribs. She signals to Mac to line up another   
shot. She pulls her right eyelid down, then finger guns at him. Deacon almost smiles despite the ungodly situation. She wants   
to blind the thing, cripple it. Then what? All she’s done so far is get crushed and orchestrate from a distance. Talk about self   
preservation; _a girl after his own heart._  
  
“HEY! You fat sack of pond debri!” She hurls the insult at the monster with such violence, it shatters Deacon’s world for a   
second.  _Maybe she has a death wish after all?_ There’s something in her fists – the beast turns to face her – it kicks the dog   
away with force.The animal yelps. The sound pierces the air around the square.   
  
“Mac! Now!” He fires and again. POP! The creature is blind. And Vault Girl lunges furiously forward …   
  
From above she hurls her body weight at it. Two hands stretched out ahead of her, like a crazed banshee, she rips through   
the flesh of its jugular. Left and right, the blades tear through its skin and blood sprouts forth like two disgusting gushing   
ravines. When the act is done, she kicks herself off its chest, blades still dual wielding.  
  
She rolls off toward the dog, searches the ground frantically for a stim, which she unceremoniously jabs into the animals leg.   
It winces, she curls around it like a mother, “God boy. Good boy. We’re okay.”  
  
In front of them, in total juxtaposition, the thing has collapsed, now in the throws of death. It reaches for them blindly, weak   
and clumsy. Still large enough to do damage. Mac walks up with purpose and unloads his handgun into its brain. The creature   
convulses and dies. There are few things in Deacon’s _recent memory_ that are as gruesome as the scene before him – except all   
involved in similar incidents usually died.  
  
The childish merc is sitting down next to her where she cradles the dog. Her vault suit ripped at the arm, exposes her soft rosy   
skin. Mac fumbles in his pockets. The square is still and Deacon can hear every word, “Best to patch it up before its irreparable,   
what we used to say when I was a kid.” He puts his hand on her shoulder. She flinches. In the afternoon sun, the merc’s needle   
glimmers. He patches her suit up with some old black thread. Deacon thinks he sees her smile a little and she says something   
so softly, Deacon doesn’t catch it.  
  



	5. You're One Up On Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet money  
> Money on a wet, black bough
> 
> \- Susan Frier

They wait out the day at Fiddler’s Green. The trailer park is musty and radioactive. MacCready mutters something  
about “Midinight blue with leopard print interior.”  
  
Vault Girl laughs with gusto, head back, loud and merciless. Mac covers her mouth with his hands. “Jesus, boss. You  
wanna alert every gunner in the vicinity?” Her laugh is stifled by his grubby hand, but her body heaves with laughter,  
tears rolling down her cheeks. She is delighted by Mac’s gaudy taste in interiors.  
  
They head down to the Mass Pike Interchange to destroy a group of gunners. She obliterates them. MacCready is so  
relieved afterward, he hugs her. The blood-thirsty merc seemed moved by her violence – as if it was more than the  
work of two good Samaritans. Deacon suspects that whatever their relationship is turning into, its grown a bit deeper.  
  
Mac launches into another of his monologues, cut short this time by the vault girl. Whatever she says cuts through him.  
His face contorts in an unusual mix of shame and sadness. The rest of their trip is spent in silence, the pair now out of  
synch. Deacon thinks it’s a relationship on borrowed time …

  
  
  



	6. Old World, Mungo Sh-Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and the Vault Girl are still on bad terms. They discuss her gaudy fashion choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can’t beat death but  
> you can beat death in life, sometimes.  
> And the more often you learn to do it,  
> the more light there will be.
> 
> \- Bukowski

She wears this old piece of cloth around her neck, tied all cute. It bounces girlishly as her bullets reign hellfire down  
upon her enemies. Again, Deacon shivers. She’s terrifying. He’s seen her take out hordes of mutants, factories full of  
raiders, eat deathclaw for breakfast – literally.  
  
The only other person even half as capable as her is Glory. And that’s horrifying to him. _This girl is it,_ he thinks.  
_We have to get her on our side …_  
  
He can’t imagine the practical use for it, the little bow scarf thing. So he assumes she’s sentimental or vain. _Vanity?_  
_Out here? For who?_ When they stop for the night in shitty old shelters or set up their sad, grubby campsites, she  
sometimes unties it. Takes it off and reties it. Mac asks her about it one night, it seems to drive him mad.  
  
They’re around the campfire, it’s misty, dark, cold. They’re letting some unfathomable substance simmer in a pot.  
It’s boiling, it makes Deacon’s insides churn.

“What’s up with the nightly ritual?” he asks her without looking her in the eye, in case it ends up being too personal.  
“I – I don’t know. Nostalgia?” Her face is calm, her fingers made the knot swiftly, well rehearsed. “Still don’t know if I  
believe it – The frozen for two centuries thing” He stirs the goop in the pot, still not looking her in the face. “I wouldn’t  
believe you if you’d told me about this future back then. _But I’m here, **living it**_ **.** You don’t need to believe me, as long  
as I keep handing over the caps, you’ll stay, right?” Her voice is soaked in a layer of something Deacon doesn’t quite  
understand yet.

“That was our deal, boss.” Mac’s face is hidden in the evening mist. Vault Girl gets up and walks off. Deacon can’t tell  
what the exchange means – suspects its something to do with caps. He can’t figure out why she picked MacCready.  
  
He’s just a merc, _no morals_ , only interested in money. Maybe that’s it? She doesn’t want to deal with any emotions?  
What ever is driving her is easier to deal with in violence. She’s trying to harden herself. Just get on with her crusade  
through the Commonwealth, no strings attached? Deacon empathises, alone on his perch in the shrubs behind them.  
  
  
  



	7. Just a Travelin' Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon had been alone so long, he's forgotten what friendship looks like, feels like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yippy yeah, there'll be no wedding bells for today
> 
> I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle  
> As I go riding merrily along  
> And they sing, oh, ain't you glad you're single?  
> And that song ain't so very far from wrong

They’ve been travelling together for a few months when he eventually spills his guts to her. They’re in Diamond   
City again. Deacon watches her paw a few caps off the counter at the noodlebar. These two are so morally bankrupt  
together. Deacon is almost amused by their camaraderie.  
  
From the outside, they seem almost like siblings. Vault Girl proceeds to buy the grizzled kid a bowl of noodles with  
the caps she stole an entire five seconds ago. His face softens completely whenever she does anything for him.  
  
Whatever he tells her, he does so with obvious anguish on his face. He sits slumped, looks her in the eyes, pleading  
with her. His monologue is mixed with some aggression, some shame. Deacon cant hear them over the noise of the  
market, can’t get closer lest she spots him again.   
  


* * *

  
  
_Like the other day, at the gate._  
  
In an instant, she'd caught his gaze. Hadn't broken eye contact, walked right up to him. “D – do I know you?” Her eyebrows   
knitted together like angry caterpillars. Deacon had fumbled for words, for a false accent. Her eyes probed him. She seemed  
to see through him straight away, burrowed down over the rims of his glasses. He’d mumbled a reply, caught off guard.   
  
“My mistake," she smiled, almost too politely.  
  
It bothered him. He’d go to bed at night with that facial expression plastered across his mind. He couldn’t figure out what   
the interaction meant. _Did she know?_  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Back at the noodle bar, MacCready appears to have lost his usual cool. Vault Girl hasn’t said a word, but suddenly interjects   
his torrent of words with a hand to his cheek. The gesture startles him. He looks confounded that she’d ever touch him so   
intimately. Deacon can’t see her mouth move, cant see her speak but whatever she says shuts him up. Slowly, the shock wears   
off and he takes her hand with his, holds it against his face. Before his eyes, the greedy, selfish merc has melted into a boy again.  
  
Deacon’s heart is beating a little faster than usual. He's uncharacteristically nervous.   
  
But just like that the moment between them is over. Mac is back at his noodles. Slurping, faraway eyes. She's playing Zeta Invaders   
on the Pip-Boy, tapping her foot to a song Deacon can’t really hear. They’re two friends again, completely comfortable with one   
another’s company.  
  
Deacon sits back, felled by a feeling of woe … _How many years has it been since he had a partner?_  A real friend, someone who cared   
about his well being over the cause of the day. _Always a cause. Somebody else's cause. Any cause, really._    
  
How many years since he's felt the touch of another, if only to reassure him the world hadn't completely gone to shit? If he wasn’t the   
Commonwealth’s damn best damn super sleuth, he’d have nothing. Just violence and chaos, just like everyone else out here.   
  
It occurs to him he’s been living vicariously through these two for too long. Feels a little too invested in their relationship.   
On the sidelines, his ghosts grow restless ...  
  
How many times had he turned to bitch about his day, but found nobody to turn to? Spoken out loud to a memory, like she was still   
listening after so long. He’s wonders if he'd be able to reel Vault Girl in to HQ ... If he was going to have a partner, she seemed like a   
damn capable one.


	8. In Cahoots ; Vigilantes of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a light somewhere.  
> It may not be much light but  
> it beats the darkness.  
> Be on the watch.
> 
> \- Bukowski

They stand on the pavement, Vault Girl shrugs the coat on excitedly. They’re both chuckling. Hancock holds a   
wad of clothes and a grimy old hat in his hands. She shrugs them on over the suit. Right there in the street.   
Hancock slings her terrible cowboy hat backwards around his neck.  
  
Deacon’s been trying to figure out what the hell the two of them are doing together now. She left the boy-merc  
back at Sanctuary and practically skipped right in to Hancock’s statehouse. When they emerge, they’re both   
grinning. Thick as thieves. Deacon wonders what mayhem is about to ensue …  
  
She’s tuning the Pip-boy. Hancock listens, smile on his face. She yelps in excitement, “C’mon, c’mon”, tugging   
him by the coat tails, “On it, Cap’n!” They both set off into the back alleys. Followed shortly by a reign of bullets.  
  
Deacon cringes. The first fight plays out, then the second, a third. Hancock high fives her, elated, impressed.  
“This is my kinda freakshow!” She flings a card on to the corpse of some chem dealer.  
  
When they scurry off again, Deacon goes back to pick it up, it’s a Silver Shroud calling card.   
  
He almost laughs out loud.  
  
_Ridiculous_


	9. The Boatman ; The Glowing Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock hauls his dying friend back from the edge of oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were thirty-one souls all, he said, on the gray-sick of sea  
> in a cold rubber boat, rising and falling in our filth.  
> By morning this didn’t matter, no land was in sight,  
> all were soaked to the bone, living and dead.
> 
> \- Carolyn Forche

Through the darkness, two figures emerge. Across the bridge, they slump forward, one dragging its heels…   
Preston shifts at the gates. The guards stand, rifles ready. It’s late at night and the air is heavy with fog.   
  
A radstorm brews overhead... Following them back from the brink of nothing ...

Vault Girl and Hancock rise from the green mist, her helmet in hand. The hazmat suit is torn right through,   
bloodied and filthy. Claw marks shredded the protective layers like butter. _Can only be a deathclaw._  From the   
Glowing Sea. A dinosaur from the inner workings of Hell.  
  
Her arm is slung around John’s shoulder. His face contorted with worry. Her face is gaunt, pale, blood running   
from her nose. Skin blistering, she rasps. Chest heaving. Hancock repeating the same thing over and over,   
" _Sweet thing, don't go dying on me_."  
  
Dogmeat runs ahead and licks her hand before she collapses. Exhaustion and radiation sickness taking over.  
Hancock lifts her up delicately, scoops her up in his arms and takes her back to her room where the gang pumps   
her full of Radaway and purified water. She stays holed up in there for a few days. Every few hours the peaceful   
silence of Sanctuary is shattered by her retching, moaning, coughing up blood.   
  
She’s got it bad. Lucky to be alive at all.

Hancock stays with her, holding her hair back, brewing her potions to keep the pain at bay … From his cover on   
the hill, Deacon finds himself impressed by her capability for the second time. There and back from The Glowing   
Sea. He feels a sense of relief wash over him - another competent human in a vault suit. _After all these years._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You tell me you are a poet. If so, our destination is the same.  
> I find myself now the boatman, driving a taxi at the end of the world.  
> I will see that you arrive safely, my friend, I will get you there.
> 
> \- Carolyn Forche


	10. Mac's Raggedy Hat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MacCready gets a patch job and a peck on the cheek.

A week passes before she’s back to full health. The recovery slow and draining. Deacon knows…

She swipes Mac’s hat off his head, swaps it with hers. “What is with you and terrible hats?” Mac grimaces at the   
cowboy headwear. She spins around, his hat pulled down over her eyes. She looks up at him from under her lashes   
“Cute or what?” Her voice all sing song, riling him up. “C-cute” he stammers.  
  
In the sun, her hair is warmer than usual. Nutmeg and honey. Freckles dancing. _That thing is so old and raggedy  
compared to _ _her_ , Deacon thinks. “Let me fix it” she says, more a statement of intent than a question. They’re both   
standing on her porch in Sanctuary, which is now more of a workshop, littered with scrap and tools, guns and   
collections of knick knacks. Deacon watches them from behind the foliage.  
  
“Hey, I’m not so bad at the patch jobs” The merc mutters. She pulls out a type of thick yarn Deacon had never seen   
before, the exact shade of green as the hat. “Wh – Where did you find that?” he stammers like a boy.   
“Its some old embroidery thread, dyed it green for you” She makes him uncomfortable with her kindness. Deacon   
always reads it in his body language. He’s not used to it - Doesn’t understand what it means.   
“Old heavy duty stuff … Never snaps” She wraps it around two fingers and tugs, quick, hard.  
  
Mac almost cries out at her to stop, but she’s right. It doesn’t snap “See?” Vault Girl beams back at him. Her teeth still   
too white. “I really didn’t take you for the sewing type?” Mac eventually blurts out. She looks off into the horizon a little,   
lost in something. “Well, mmm. 200 years ago, if a woman didn’t sew… “ Her voice is far away, lost in the fog of her   
nostalgia, she suddenly perks up.  
  
She sounds like one of the old bots at the greenhouse – the lady gardener – all crooner, glitz and glam.   
“ _ **Dah-ling,**_  Hows a girl ‘sposed to get herself a husband if she cant even rightly manage a home?” Vault Girl seems to have   
lost it. Heat stroke. Wasteland madness. Just the offset of the radiation sickness?  
  
“What?” Mac is thoroughly confused. If Deacon hadn’t read the books, the history would be lost on him too …  
“ _Etiquette dah-ling._ Books on the head,”she taps her noggin, “Now walk!” She kicks her heels, turns and trots. Her hips   
sway in the way they do, that makes MacCready stop listening. “Grace – manners, _hems and lace_!” She places a hand on   
her hip, looking at the perplexed merc, all sing-song and bubbly.   
  
“And _dah-ling_ , my god! Never forget dinner’s on the table by 6. A full Sunday roast!” She grins, waving his hat in the air.   
She waltzes back up to him with glee. She seems to have flipped a switch again, stepped through time.  
  
Deacon loves this old world shit. The rare occasions where the girl seemed to turn into a magazine cover or a billboard.   
Made him wonder what the rest of Vault 111 was like. Deacon knows that back in the day, life was weird for women.   
Daisy’s told him stories. He knows they couldn’t even vote. In such a civilised society. Which may explain how she’s so   
at home out here in the Commonwealth - maybe she was an alien back then? Too wild? Too different? Too _other_?  
  
“You’re loco. Boss. Too many rads,” Mac mumbles at her. She pops the hat back on his head with such finesse, pointed   
fingers. What comes next, Mac doesn’t seem prepared for. She lifts his chin with a thumb and forefinger, then plants a   
soft kiss on his cheekbone, turning his face into her warmth. Mac’s whole body seems to fold into her. Starved for touch.   
  
_Aren’t we all out here?_  
  
She lingers there, draws it out, seems to enjoy it. Soft curls on his shoulder. When she pulls away, he shakes off the red.   
He stammers something, but her spirits are too high, from teasing him. She turns around to the audience that isn’t there,   
arms raised, “Only the best for my husband, ladies!” She curtsies in a grand gesture of absolutely immaculate womanhood.  
  
Something rustles in the bushes. A roach. She’s drawn her weapon and popped it in the head before Deacon has time to react,   
Quick and clean. The shot misses him by inches but she hasn’t spotted him. “Jesus, this woman.” Deacon mutters aloud.   
  
She laughs loudly, almost hysterically, prancing down the road. Almost skipping. Almost bursting into song, a giddy horde   
of birds at her sides. A rainbow splitting the blue sky.  
  
It dawns on Deacon that she’s actually having fun. He wonders if something important has finally snapped inside her…   
  
Mac is still standing on the porch, looking out beneath the half-dead ivy. He’s watching her hips sway, absent mindedly   
stroking the spot on his check where her lips touched him.


	11. I am in Blood Stepp'd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vault Girl and MacCready take down a courser.

Something has changed little by little in the Vault Girl. She’s harder, better at combat, but instead of dreary, she   
seems to relish the changes around her. As if she’s finally figured out there’s no going back …  
  
The two of them are back on the road in old Cambridge, searching for something near the old CIT ruins. Deacon   
is uneasy in the familiar setting. He feels eyes on his back while he watches them. Vault Girl tunes into an eerie   
frequency on her Pip-Boy, following a terrible beeping that gets more rapid, more annoying until they’re standing   
in front of Greentech Genetics.  
  
“Ugh. This place is Gunner HQ, boss” Mac mumbles as he looks up at the looming monstrosity.  
“On top of whatever else we’re gonna run in to, there’ll be heavies.”   
  
Vault Girl looks at him with stern eyes for a few seconds. “You ready?” shes asks unflinching.   
“Let’s blow them all to hell,” Mac smiles.  
  
Weapons ready, they storm the building. The gunfight through the building lasts for an hour. As they tear through   
the corridors, chucking grenades and stimpaks between one another. Missiles tear through the walls, missing Deacon   
by inches. _What the fuck was he doing in here, **with these lunatics.**_ He should have waited, should’ve stayed outside.   
But he missed such large chunks of the mystery waiting on the outside. Deacon needed to see with his own eyes what   
happened in their interiors … Instead he decides to loosen up with his pursuit, follow from more of a distance, lest they   
annihilate him in the massacre too.  
  
Stepping over all the bodies in the hallways, his blood runs cold. A voice over the loud speaker alerts the base to the   
presence of a courser. _Shiiiiit_. The voice on the intercom is suddenly cut short by gunfire. The gunner screams, agony  
in defeat. On the top floor, stepping through the elevator, he’s met with more death, chaos, destruction. All so familiar   
and commonplace … All deja vu and regret …  
  
Voices above him are interrupted with more gunfire. The eerie sounds of an Institute pistol whipping through the air.   
“Mac!” Vault Girl shouts at him through the rounds and a grenade goes off. Suddenly the air is quiet, musty with the   
aftermath. Vault Girl is talking to someone, a young girl. He hears the revolting crunch of a blade tearing into flesh.   
  
Blood drips through the cracks above his head. In the fluorescent lighting, the steel and the carnage has him nauseated.   
The elevator roars to life. After a few minutes all the footsteps and voices have stopped. Deacon makes his way up...  
  
On the floor by the staircase, a girl stands over the body of what was once a courser. Its head red mush from a messy   
removal of its chip. The girl turns, weapon raised at Deacon. “Whoa,whoa. I’m a friend. Promise” Deacon sees her for   
what she is right away, all rabbit in the headlights ; an escaped synth. “I’m with the Railroad …”  
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told that lady, I need to learn to make it on my own” The girl tells him through angry eyes.  
“Look, you wont last a day out there til they find you again. We have methods for getting synths out the Wealth. At least   
let me take you back to HQ with me. Show you your options?” She paces, conflicted by the truth, the lies, by the reality.  
  
From the top of the tower of corpses, the two of them stand for a bit, taking in the carnage. Blood on the walls, under   
their fingernails. Bodies splayed where they fell...  
  
**_“All causes shall give way: I am in blood stepp’d so far that,_**  
**_should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er:_**  
**_strange things I have in head, that will to hand;_**  
**_which must be acted ere they may be scann’d”_ **  
  
Deacon recites it into the dark, in his mind, as they make their way back down into Boston, through the old church.


	12. One of the Good Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac gets more than he bargained for from the Vault Girl after finding Duncan's serum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hearts  
> you draw with ballpoint on my cigarette packs  
> when I've left the room, penned in your girl's
> 
> cursive, look demented, misshapen approximations  
> of what I refuse to hand over. It's a nice touch,  
> though: a little love to accompany the cancer.
> 
> \- Cate Marvin

Something happens between them at Med Tek. Deacon doesn’t follow them in. In his subterfuge, he cant always   
get too close, lest he blows his cover. He knows he misses a lot of the important parts. It infuriates him.   
  
When they emerge from the building after a few hours, Caroline’s head is bleeding slightly. Mac has a crate of loot   
in his arms. The merc has that same soft, lost look on his face. She’s got her arm on his shoulder, kindly saying   
something to him.  
  
They head back to Goodneighbor, to Daisy in particular. He overhears something about a cure. He makes a mental   
note to ask the old ghoul next time he’s in town on his own. The two of them are standing out front now, near the  
gate. Mac hands her a little wooden thing. It’s quiet out tonight, no one on the streets. Deacon in disguise and Daisy   
in the doorway of the shop. Deacon fake reads the paper. Daisy is engrossed in the strange duo’s moment.  
  
Deacon doesn’t get it. All this cute stuff. Vault Girl spies Daisy over Mac’s shoulder. That wry smile Deacon has come   
to know spreads across her face. “Oh Jesus, “ Deacon mutters. Daisy stifles the most girlish squeal he’s ever head come   
out a ghoul. Vault Girl goes for it. Before the merc has time to finish another of his endless, heartfelt monologues, she   
has one hand on his face, up his neck, hat off, she pulls him into her without hesitation.  
  
For a second, MacCready is shell-shocked and Deacon thinks it would’ve been pretty steamy had it not been the boyish   
killer, Robert Joseph MacCready. Vault Girl looks like she could make you bust a nut in five seconds if she really wanted   
you to. The kid has obviously had no idea it was going to go down like this. He’s standing all over his damned hat. He   
fumbles for the girl. His hands are looking for a part of her to hold on to.

 _Ridiculous_ , Deacon thinks to himself. Daisy is still devouring the show, hands covering her little gasps.  
  
Mac has taken his chance, up against the wall, they make out like teenagers, clumsy, starved. Deacon has to turn away   
lest he retches.   
  
“Ah I’m so proud of him. He’s one of the good ones you know?”   
Deacon almost gags at Daisy,“They’re both fully grown adults, Dee”.   
“Ah, sour puss. You should take something from this. _Go out and **live a little**._ ”


	13. I Lived, You Didn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and Vault Girl head back to Sanctuary to rest, to wait. Deacon's spying gets a little too close to home.

**_"_** Hey, you know you can stay here. Daisy runs a supply chain through Sanctuary now. She can keep you posted   
when she comes through." Vault Girl smiles at MacCready half heartedly. "Plus, the settlers always need a merc...   
You’d be rolling in caps. Still two empty old houses around here.” She takes his hand, holds it side on,   
affectionately his friend. “We can be neighbors”.  
  
Just behind them, Preston is displeased. His face always gives him away. He must still be pretty uncertain of   
MacCready’s intentions with Vault Girl, with life in general. Guy’s too violent, too quick to pull the trigger …   
for any cause that has the most caps. The worst kind of wastelander. Plus all the green clothing probably reminds   
him too much of a Gunner. _And everybody knows Preston hates gunners._  
  
“Yeah, that sounds pretty idyllic doesn’t it? It’s still hard to believe. All you’ve done for me …” Briefly, he squeezes   
her hand, in a sad familiar way. “Thanks Boss. I mean it.” He pulls away, turns and leaves. She watches him for a   
bit, then turns to Preston, whose face is a deep portrait of emotions.  
  
“Don’t think too hard, you might bust a vessel” She laughs lightly, tipping his hat down over his eyes and pats him   
on the back as she walks away, back into her place. “Yes, ma'am”, Preston mutters, turning to head back to his   
position at the bridge …  
  


* * *

  
  
Inside, she locks the door behind her. Deacon is up against the back of the house. Walls still full of holes, her place   
is a little too easy to stake out. The past few days have been long, hard. Too many feelings all over the place.   
  
Through one of the rusted little holes, he spies on her. She pulls a holotape out from under her pillow...   
  
“It’s almost been a year but I still miss you” she says out loud. “The people out here are grizzled, untrusting. They’ve   
all forgotten what compassion feels like. Don’t know what to do with simple kindness …”   
She thumbs the tape over, eyes lost in the shadows of her dim bedroom.   
  
“Will it ever feel alright – That I lived and you didn’t?”  
  
She pops the tape into her Pip-Boy. A baby gurgles in the background, “Hi honey!” a man’s voice fills the room, soft   
and kind like the Vault Girl. On the bed, she folds in on herself, around the sound. Deacon turns away, quietly makes   
his way up the hill behind her house. Some things were best left untarnished by his prying eyes.  
  
Somewhere inside him, he really feels for her. Deacon just cant shake the deja vu anymore.  
  


* * *

  
  


Deacon falls asleep under the trees shortly behind the Vault Girl’s little box house. The sun is warm on his face, breeze   
blowing quietly. Sanctuary doesn’t seem real to him. Peaceful, the leaves turning amber. It’s Autumn already.

When he wakes, it’s night. From the stars, Deacon assumes somewhere around 2am. Shit, he’s done it again. Godforsaken   
settler’s paradise makes him feel to at ease. He fumbles in the dark for a stealthboy, needs to get sight of her again, go back   
round the house, check the windows. He peers out, apart from the lazy patrol dogs, things are quiet. Nobody on the streets.   
He heads round the back, too much debri, he crashes into some fallen branches. _Fuck. Too groggy._ He considers the stealthboy.   
Only two left and this one feels lighter than the others for some reason.

Suddenly his entire body is bathed in pip-boy light. “You!?” The vault girl accuses him. “You've been fo-“ Deacon fumbles with   
the switch, flips it just as she draws her weapon. His visage stutters in and out of existence. _Shit, it’s a dud_. He turns to her,   
his body prickling like static before her. “Okay, whoa there. Don’t shoot. There's an explanation, I promise but we -   
we gotta stop running into each other like this”. She looks at him with eyes that tell him **_do or die._**

A noise behind him startles them both, “Just shoot him in the knee caps, he’ll start talking real quick.” MacCready takes aim   
and pulls the trigger. “Mac, don’t!” Vault Girl shrieks at him, like she’s scolding a little boy. The shot misses, hits the stealthboy.   
Suddenly it roars to life and Deacon is gone from their sight.  
  
“Follow the Freedom Trail” he whispers as he slips past her, her hair clipping his cheek, is soft as it looks. He decides to make a   
run for it. That was too close for comfort. Maybe he should stop using her to get out of paperwork.   
  
_Did she even hear him? Was that the single lamest thing he’s ever said?_  
  
Deacon rubs his forehead in dismay, Ugh. Back to HQ. All he can do now is hope and wait.   
Let things cool down.


	14. Caroline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon takes matters into his own hands. He heads down to Valentine in Diamond City to learn the truth about Vault Girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your name is a—bird in my hand,  
> a silver bell in my mouth.  
> The light click of hooves at night  
> —your name.  
> Your name at my temple  
> —sharp click of a cocked gun.
> 
> \- Marina Tsvetaeva

That night, he makes his way down to Valentine. Ellie almost calls security on him at first.  
“Ellie, c’mon. It’s me. _Ipso facto. **Deacon.**_ ” He’s laying on the charm.  
“Ugh, I suppose only Deacon would use words from a dead language.” She gestures for him to sit.  
“Nick’ll be in soon. You’ll have to wait.” she turns to carry on with her paperwork.  
“You know Latin may be dead, but that just makes it sound even more romantic.” He wiggles his eyebrows   
at her from the dirty brown chair, trying to light a cigarette. The door clinks, unlocks as Ellie’s face contorts   
in repulsion.  
  
“Ellie” Valentine’s voice is low, full of concern as he crosses the threshold, “What’s with the look on your face?”  
“Hey Nick, _mea culpa._ Seems Ellie isn’t a fan of the classics” Deacon stands to greet his old friend.  
“Deacon, good to see ya again, old pal.” He’s recognised him right away. The same as ever, cheerful, yet serious.

They both light cigarettes. The dingy apartment fills with smoke. The shuffling of papers behind them in comforting.  
“Nick, I’m calling in on our favour…” The detective’s washed out old eyebrows arch in disbelief.  
“The Vault Girl, I need you to tell me why she’s here. Why she saved your ass, what her crusade is.”  
Deacon doesn’t waste any time. Ellie stops with the papers and turns to look at him.

“Look Deacon, you’re a pal and I owe you but that’s client confidentiality. I skip it once, soon you’ll be coming to   
me for every damn tip you ever needed.” Deacon knew that would be the answer, he puts his elbows on his knees,   
takes off his glasses.  _Appeal to the old softie, look defeated._  Deacon sighs forlornly.  
“Nick, this ones important. I – I’m in love with her …” Ellie bursts into a fit of giggles. Nick’s metal face twists and   
grinds. Deacon imagines sparks flying and almost smiles, almost gives away the bluff.  
“Deacon. You are a _terrible, dishonest, no good **liar**_.” Deacon grins, smug.  
“Hey now if you believed that, you wouldn’t let me in every time.” Nick smiles down at him, yellow eyes glowing   
affectionately. “Tell me the truth and I’ll consider it …”  
  
Deacon’s head is spinning a mile a minute. From what he’s gathered, Vault Girl is on a personal crusade to find   
something – someone? Which can only mean the Institute, due to the simple fact that she is a demon, capable of   
finding anything less complex. Enough time has passed, she has left enough deathclaws in her wake to convince   
him her enemy is the biggest one out. For months now, her and the band of misfits have been rolling around the   
wastes, just looking for something. Following imaginary traces of evidence that keep leading her into more life-  
threatening danger ...

Deacon decides to gamble, fool old Nick one last time. “Nick, the Railroad has plans to get inside The Institute.   
We know she’s looking for someone. If she’ll be our ally, we’ll take all the help we can get.” Deacon kills every   
muscle in his face, grits against any signs of a lie. His ultimate pokerface.  
  
“Inside the insti- …” The room is silent for a while as he takes the time to mull it over.  
Ellie puts her hand on his, “Nick, this is exactly what she wants … You have to …” They share little knowing looks.  
  
_Hook, line and sinker._  
  
  
Even Deacon is impressed. He feels a smug grin coming on. Nick turns to face him and he buries his triumph.

“She’s 230 something years old, froze most of it off in a vault. She woke up from the pre war era, where everything   
was bright and green and cushy. The wake up call was harsh. Bastards executed her husband and took her infant.   
The Institute has him…”

Ellie looks up at him encouragingly, “Nick. Tell him all of it.” her eyes full of concern. _They both really cared about_  
the girl. “She killed a man from the inside - Kellog. We have the chip from his implant. A – Amarie soldered it into   
me for a few minutes, then your vault girl hopped in. We rode his memories all the way to The Institute…”  
  
Deacon’s face is falling into disarray. He is incredulous.  
This Vault Girl he’s been following for months. In between the cracks of his surveillance, has done the unthinkable.

“Caroline’s son is alive – Shaun – They have him but Caroline can’t get to him. She needs to get inside. She went to   
meet an escaped sci-” Nicks words trail off into fog around him. Through the haze in the room, the only word he really   
heard was her name.

 _Caroline._ Deacon plays the name over in his mind. Rolls it over his tongue for the first time, “Caroline.”  
The woman in the blue vault suit is suddenly all the more tangible to him. Driven, with goals. Her personal crusade   
may turn into the most important thing he's done in the last decade.

“Deacon … Are you even listening to me? _Please_ let this be the one honest thing you ever do with your life.”  
Nick's voice is fatherly. Both patronising and wise.   
  
Deacon smiles.   
  
 _Just another thing to run away from ..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I've got lots more to share. I'll keep posting, as much as I can.
> 
> PS. This is a bit of a slow burner


	15. Caroline and Her Cause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day finally comes. Caroline walks the Freedom Trail.

The next time he sees her, she’s with Dogmeat. She’s finally come to him – to Railroad HQ.  
  
There she is, reddish-gold locks frayed, wet with blood. She dusts her hands on the suit, the dog lets out a   
low cautionary growl as Deacon comes up the path. Vault Girl looks up, truly incredulous. The look on her   
face makes Deacon smile.  
  
“YOU?!” He mocks her. “You're the guy!” Again, she picks up her pistol, takes aim at him. Glory perks up,   
Dez and Drummer Boy share “ _Oh shit_ ” expressions. The tension in the room is thick, heavy. Like somebody   
filled it with gas and one of is about to flip a lighter. Deacon laughs, from his belly. A hearty Californian   
drawl of a laugh.  
  
Vault Girl lowers her weapon in defeat. “Ugh.” she makes a disgusted noise. “Look, I’m here to find my son.  
This guy has been following me for months. WHY?” Dez smiles kindly and the tension is gone as quickly as  
it arose. “Well, that’s kind of what Deacon does.”  
  
" _Deacon_." She looks straight through him as she says it. Her eyes full of wonder.  
  
“Whoa now, before we all start dishes out hugs, first things first…Dez” He shrugs off the strange moment.  
“Right, you getting in here was no small feat. You say you’re looking for someone, so I assume you know   
what it is we do here. Why the secrecy is required. Before you come any further I need to know : Would you   
put your life on the line for a synth?” Desdemona delivers the real hard-hitting one ...  
  
The girl's face changes a little. She takes off her hat, brushes the dust off it. Hair falls in her face, over her   
eyes. The next part fills Deacon with a feeling he had almost forgotten about.   
  
“I put my life on the line for my friends every God damn day, why would a synth be any different?” She brushes   
the stray locks from her eyes, defiant, annoyed by the question. The room is silent.  
  
Deacon can feel what the others are feeling too : _Hope_.  
And just like that, the next great adventure begins.  
  
_Caroline and her cause …_


	16. Lies ; A Liar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon finds a secluded spot to lay his mattress in Sanctuary. He reflects on the depth of Caroline's keen eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I go with you, but only till the end  
> Of one small hour, and when the hour is done
> 
> Now, at last,  
> Heave me upon your shoulder, whispering sly,  
> As you so oft before have whispered, you dark lie.
> 
> \- James Stephens

He doesnt know when sleeping under Sturges garage become a thing. He keeps a mattress under  
the walled off section. Perfect cover. Perfect privacy. Right across from Whisper’s house - it was  
convenient and kept him dry.  
  
Deacon likes Sturges. Weird old Atom Cat vibe and simple view of the world. He's just so - simple.   
  
They never stayed in Sanctuary for very long. Deacon was oddly grateful for any delays they  
encountered. There was food, clean water, friendly faces, ample protection. The general would  
inevitably end up fixing something or being invited in for iguana soup whenever she stayed  
too long. He liked to watch the way the settler’s faces lit up a little as she crossed the bridge.  
  
"Why don't you crash on my couch? I have a roof, a door. The bathroom almost works." The new  
agent had invited him in so kindly but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Her house was hers.   
Not meant for the dregs of the wasteland to wander through.  
  
She always got his need for space - for solitude. Never pushed against it. He liked it about her.  
They’d fallen into the same synchronicity as she and Mac had fairly quickly. Which Deacon now  
understood as the strange power of the Vault Girl. No credit at all to RJ MacCready.  
  
She respected his boundaries, seemed to share his world view. Was happy to be taught how not  
to charge in with gusto. Rather sneak. They both valued stealth when it counted and she could  
really chuck a stimpak pretty far. _A great partner._  
  
His scepticism still kept him at arms length. Careful no to get too close, reveal anything about  
himself. _All he had to do was lie._ First time he spilled his guts to her, really digging the partner  
thing, he covered it up with some bullshit. Told her he was actually head of the Railroad. Dez   
was nothing but a puppet. _Cue the maniacal laughter._  Whisper called his bluff right away.  
  
“You're a liar” At the time it impressed him, but as they kept travelling, it made him nervous too.  
The rare moments in conversation she’d engage the deep scan of her eyes. Look right through him.  
He was certain she’d known he’d followed her for months, could feel his eyes on her. She'd picked   
him out in crowds, seen his rifle in the bushes. She was quick, strong instincts.  
  
If his own history was anything to go on, her potential was pretty limitless. Together they could really  
put a dent in the depravity out here ...


	17. God's Not Watching Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline helps smuggle her first synth out the 'Wealth. They reminisce about her husband before Old Man Stockton arrives at the church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The college of cardinals wore punitive red.  
> The white spine waved to me from his white throne.  
> Being in a place not my own, much less  
> myself, I climbed out, a beast in a crib.  
> Somewhere a terrorist rolled a cigarette.  
> Reason, not faith, would change him.
> 
> \- Henri Cole

They get to Bunker Hill early. When Kessler asks in a huff, "Raider or caravan?", Whisper announces loudly,  
“RAIDER!”. She grins through white Cheshire teeth. People shuffle nervously around them. Deacon is mortified,  
but he's smiling. In the next breath, she’s convinced the trader down the drag to walk the Freedom Trail. He  
laughs at her haggling tactics, charming traders, selling junk ...  
  
Deacon still feels somewhat separate to her. Not sure of her intentions with the Railroad, whether she'll leave  
them high and dry. Bringing her into the fold is a risk after all the organisation's losses.  
  
Old Man Stockton sits, grey and gloomy. He’s looking a bit too shifty when they approach. Whisper takes the  
reigns, all smoke and mirrors. She sticks to subterfuge. Deacon is impressed, grateful she respects protocol  
after all.  
  


* * *

  
  
That night they wait out in the old church, dead ghouls at their feet. Lantern snuffed out at the window …  
“Pass me a cigarette?” she turns to Deacon. “Please ...” They’re both bored, waiting out the night in comfortable   
silence. “Well, since you asked so nicely.” He rummages through his pockets, finds a slightly less grimy pack.   
Pulls out two and passes her one. “You used to smoke pre war? Or is this just a byproduct of the Commonwealth”  
  
She looks a little forlorn under all her hair, eyes soft, lost in a memory, “Coop hated it. He couldn't get me to quit…”  
Cooper - The strangely fictitious and dead husband he couldn't separate her from. He almost wished he hadn’t   
asked.  _How long had she been out here?_ Almost a year? _And before that?_ She’d had enough time to build settlements   
and become a general. He couldn't put his finger on why it bugged him so much, but it always made him slightly   
nasty.  _The world before the bombs fell._  ..  
  
"Caroline and Cooper Crawford. Did you two spin in circles and sing kumbayah on the front lawn just to make  
the neighbours jealous?” The words escaped his mouth before he could tie them down. _Fuck_ , he thought. _Too far_.  
  
But she’s laughing. The hearty, husky chuckle she seemed to reserve only for his terribly sardonic jokes.  
“Yes, **_often_**!” she smiles at Deacon warmly. “Before he even proposed, he used to bring me my lunch at work  
and he’d jam the elevator just so we could have a lunch time romp.” _Romp_. Deacon almost chokes on his spit.   
“Jesus Whisper, _In God’s temple_.” He looks around them at the dead creatures on the floor, the shell casings,  
the rotten wood of the pews.  
  
“I’m sure God has abandoned us all by now.” She’s still smiling through the smoke, flicking ash at her feet. He  
liked to tease her, push her for more information. Deacon loved the tales of the old world, always had.  
  
“That’s just the tip of the sinful iceberg really. We conceived Shaun in the park just down the hill from Sanctuary.  
Broad daylight. Sun on my back” Her eyes are closed, arms outstretched. She smiles, wide and sweet.  
“Good to see you on top … and that the thrill seeking isn't just a byproduct of being in this wasteland”  
  
“Were you … actually picturing that? Me all naked in the sunshine riding my dead husband?” She opens one eye  
at him, interrupted mid-reverie. Deacon feels terrible for smiling back, “Whisper. That’s dark, _even for us._ ”  
  
When the old man finally arrives, Whisper is soft spoken and serious. She holds H2-22’s hand when they meet,  
not quite a handshake. She’s gentle with the scared kid. Deacon wonders how all the versions of her fit together  
so well, how they all know when to show up, when to behave.


	18. Thick as Thieves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline blesses their partnership with Old World trinkets. A moment passes between them and Deacon flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not saying “mark my words,”  
> as the thief says early each winter.  
> He leaves nothing of value. He too wants.  
> A brute with language, he has a fondness  
> for preaching. 
> 
> \- Sheryl Luna

It’s the first time Deacon has been inside her house. It’s a hoarders paradise, piles of collectables stacked  
to the ceiling, albeit quite neatly. It’s one of those creepy old modular houses, all peachy blue with a little  
washed out red door.  
  
The size of the kitchen / lounge strikes him. She’s decked it out scavver-style, but it’s nice. It's ... layed out,  
designed. Posters and signs everywhere. A painting of Napolean towers floor to wall. Looming over them ;  
_victory, conquest, death._  Something simmers in a pot on the old blue stove in the back. It almost smells good.  
There’s a conifer wrapped in string lights in the corner. Deacon adds it to his list of weird things he doesn’t  
understand about her.  
  
They’re here to pick up more ammo, some extra gear she has in her locker. Deacon has no intention of going  
inside, but she insists she has something he’d love and he has to come fetch it. He’s sceptical. Her gifts are  
usually little more than manual labour ...   
  
He follows her down the corridor, piles of blue paint cans stacked at the end, candlelit. Grime caked into the  
walls, ivy, burnt-red, peeking through the ceiling. _Caroline's life in ruins._  Shadows flicker in the hallway, dancing  
to the light of the little wicks in wax.  _Girl knows how to make t_ _hings cosy_ , Deacon thinks to himself. He figures  
this is what a real home used to be like.  
  
There's a bathroom to his left. Big tub in the centre. Stacks of make-shift towels, handmade soap. More posters   
rolled on to the walls like wallpaper. To his right, an empty space. An old handy box in the corner.   
  
The door to the room opposite hers is open, Dogmeat sleeps on the carpet inside. A puddle of toys around him.  
Aliens and red trucks, little wooden blocks. Deacon catches a glimpse of an old blue cot, little shitty mobile   
attached. He looks away, _why he didn’t want to come inside_. He knew there'd be a shrine to the baby somewhere …  
  
He stops outside the door to her bedroom, _too personal_. He turns on his heels. _Bad idea_ he thinks. _Bad idea_.   
She’s entitled to at least one safe space in this world, right? One room free from the ruin of the Commonwealth?   
She grabs him by the sleeve and yanks him, directly to her locker …   
  
“Is that - a disco ball in your bedroom?” Deacon is incredulous at her tastelessness where it counts.  
  
The room is the same pale shade of blue, the bedspread a very septic yellow, but so clean its almost happy.   
“It’s new, ya like it?” She’s on the pip boy. Deacon groans. She flips to DCR. Luckily for her, it’s an upbeat track,  
perfect for the terrible dance moves she’s busting out before him. One move involves some kind of hip thrusting,  
finger pointed up.   
  
“You are ridiculous. I’m done with _**you,** daddy cool_. This partnership is officially over” He jests, turns to move out …  
“Ah spoilsport, c’mooon …” Her voice is buttery. “Don’t you wanna at least see what I got you?”  
He’s amused, nervous to what the hell it could be this time. Still uncomfortable for being in her room. When he turns  
to face her again, she’s wearing the most hideous pair of white bubble sunglasses under her ridiculous Minuteman  
cowboy hat. Deacon snorts, cant stifle the laugh that erupts from him. The smile on her face is the most wonderful  
mixture of playful and cheesy, grinning like a fool. She is totally pleased with herself. “For team us …”  
  
Extended in her palms is a hat, with a grimy bow around it. There’s something inside it. She pushes it into his chest.  
Her hair bobs happily into her face. Deacon fights the urge to tuck it behind her ear. His stomach churns. Maybe he  
should pop a stealth boy? _Bug out real quick?_  
  
They’d been on the road together a couple months. He respected her as a leader, as a ... friend. A word he still  
wasn’t used to. “Hey! you said if I ever need a sidekick, Remember? You’re not a sidekick tho, pard’nerr.” She fakes  
an old cowboy drawl, winks at him, finger gun cocked and pointed his way.   
  
_When was the last time anyone did something so nice for him, shit?_ He still hasn’t said anything, not sure if his face  
has made any visceral reactions. He takes a mental note that he could probably fit out the window.  
  
Whisper’s face changes a little after a minute of quiet. _Worried he hates it?_ “Hey, open it. There’s more”  
She pulls gently at the corner of the bow, it falls away in his hands. Deacon laughs when the treasure reveals itself   
– the same damn pair of totally fashionable sunglasses … but underneath, a little flag bandana, just like hers.   
  
He knows she’s given them to others – to Preston, Sturges, Valentine. He’s been catching glimpses of the damn   
things all over the commonwealth come to think of it …  
  
Dogmeat brandishes his proudly around his neck. Deacon looks around her room, a pile of old triangle frames lie  
in a duffel in the back. Old America spilling out, torn, shredded. Come to think of it, Tom has one tucked into the  
front of his dungarees, Glory has one tied to her belt. Daisy has one, still framed, very clean and new-looking on her  
windowsill. He thinks even Piper must've eventually riled one out of her, caught a glimpse of the ol red white and  
blue on her wrist. Who else has she dished them out to – _What are the criteria?_ Just a gesture of goodwill?  
  
“You make this yourself?” he asks, noticing the edges have been sewn quite skillfully.  
“Not really. Scavenged the flags, washed them then just darned the hems” Her eyebrows get all knotted when she  
stammers, embarrassed by her efforts ”- to prevent them from fraying” Under the glasses her cant see her eyes,  
and he suddenly understands how she feels, basically all the time around him “ ... I- It’s no big deal.” She smiles  
half-heartedly, disappointed Deacon hasn’t had much of a reaction.  
  
“Well, it might be the nicest thing anyone has ever given me” Deacon humours her, “How do I put it on – like yours?  
I wanna be like _the original_ – Not some cheap trick.” She smiles, it fills her face, bright and rosy.  
  
She wraps it around his neck, close to him. He can see her eyes now, just over the brims of her terrible fashion  
choice. They’re full of something else he cant quite place? – _affection_ – anticipation. Her face has softened being  
so near to him. As she works her dainty fingers, he fills the unbearably comfy silence with noise.  
“You seen the way Piper wears this thing? Absolute sacrilege! That girl has no style” She smirks, still concentrating  
on the knot. “And Hancock – I mean the audacity – To just have it all loosely swung up over his crotch –“  
She chortles, looks him in the eye under the glasses. Her eyes pierce his, so close to his face, she warns him with  
them. “-Like he wants you or somethi … ing…” The sentence trails off a the end.  
  
Her eyes are still on his, she’s stopped with the bow, just has her hands to his neck. The see-through gaze on his   
face makes him nervous. _What is she playing at?_ The face of absolute treachery, always before she does something  
terrible. His heart pounds. Her hand moves down to his chest. She’s too close to him, can feel her breath. Whiskey-  
eyes looking him down. His head is heavy. She moves the other hand off the little knot, up the back of his neck,   
their faces a breathe away.  
  
Dogmeat growls in the room over, low, angry. The growl turns into a savage bark that rips apart the air around  
them. Whisper already has rifle in hand, making her way over to the mutt. She leaves the room, Deacon lets out   
the rush of air that’s been trapped in his chest. _Fuck,_ he thinks. _What was that?_  
  
Whisper’s pot shots out the window startle him. “Deacon!” she shouts from next door. “Just a radstag - I got it.”  
  
He exits in the most stealthy fashion he ever could. With clear direction and purpose – out the window.   
_Leave this_ _house immediately and never return._  
  
Deacon has rules for surviving the Commonwelth, for not getting killed in the Railroad, for not getting _anyone else_  
killed in the aftermath ; don't trust anyone, don't be gun-ho and don't get attached. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to forget him:  
> lock him in a box in my head,  
> lock him in the haunt of violins, let go  
> what’s his in the hurl of breath of my groans.
> 
> \- Sheryl Luna


	19. The Schoolhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We hang clothes on the line.  
> His wide trousers and shirt, wind-beat,  
> roar small thunder from one prairie cloud. 
> 
> The same rapple of flag on its pole. 
> 
> \- Diane Glancy

They're in Diamond City when Deacon mentions the schoolhouse. She's got that little nostalgic twinkle in her eye again.  
"What?" She guffaws, incredulous "Yeah, it's out in the back, bucko. Real bonafide public schoolhouse."  
"I don't believe you ... they even teach math?"  
"Training _mathletes._  I'm telling you ..." But she's gone before she hears the joke.  
"Don't!" Deacon goes for her arm but she's already inside. _Ugh._ That old teacher guy hates it when people just barge in.  
How those kids get any education is beyond him. Holding lessons in Diamond City is like preaching the gospel in a brothel.  
  
She's up the stairwell, right in the old man's face, looking at all the small faces looking back at her. She almost gasps,   
covering her mouth. She's flustered she interrupted, "I'm so sorry. I - I thought - my friend was lying", she mumbles.   
"I didn't realise..."  
  
"Hush darling, eets okay. Thees ees a publeek beeuilding after all" A female handy model whirrs and grinds as she escorts   
them back downstairs.  
  
The robot wants a quiz, and Whisper smugly aces it. "Oh god, you were a total geek back then weren't you?" She flashes   
him one of those red hot glares. Deacon wants to laugh but the freckles and the vitiligo soften the blow too much.   
  
Endearing, _ridiculous._  
  
The conversation starts going south, Miss Handy asking her all kinds of philosophical questions. She replies to each one   
with a stern look on her face, taking this moment of education very seriously, like it's a completely natural fact of life ...  
  
"Love is forever. You have to leap when you can, you don't know what tomorrow holds, especially out here."  
Her voice permeates the stagnant air in the room. Deacon's insides have all but turned to porridge.  
  
This hardened war-mongerer,  _an old romantic._  


	20. Chaos Theory ; Time Travelin’ Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Caroline talk conspiracy theories with Tinker.

“You kill me, Whisper. You let Tom jab you with battery acid.” Glory’s voice is sour as ever, but she smirks   
at the new agent with a kind of respect. “Well, you know I read all the shit on his terminal too. The theories …”  
Caroline’s face is full of mischief again. An idea works through her mind. Deacon can see it - the voltage in  
her eyes. “I uhh, told him … I recognised you. From _before_ the war.”  
  
She looks up at Deacon from under the ridiculous hat, biting down on her top lip, smiling maniacally.  
“ ** _Yesss_**!” Deacon claps his hands, impressed by the agent, always thinking on her feet. Glory moans as  
Caroline gets up from her seat and makes her way over to Tinker Tom.  
  
Deacon can hardly contain himself, has to grit down on his teeth as she plonks herself down in his chair.  
He’s fiddling with something and sparks fly. His eyes bug out a little.  
“Hey Tom, you know I was trying to think where I remember Deacon’s face from” she broaches the subject  
tenderly, her eyebrows serious, knotted together. “And I think I finally got it …"   
"There was this character in an old film, used to wear glasses all the time. I had one of his posters on my wall as  
a kid. The lead had ginger hair. That really got me as a kid, pigtails and braces. The world wasn't kind..." She clears   
her throat, self-concious. "It's a parody film, about the _**second best** secret agent _ in the whole wide world..."   
  
Tom hasn’t moved much from the contraption he’s currently working on, seemingly unimpressed by the conversation.  
Deacon is disappointed. “Well, the guy changes faces a lot, Whisper. We’ve been through this man,” Tom is in a huff,  
impatient. “Yeah, _I remember_ … but then I thought. What if he just recycles them. Occasionally returning to sentimental  
old favourites” Caroline’s voice is softer now, like she’s letting him in on the biggest secret in the Commonwealth. In the   
rickety stool, she’s bent forward, elbow on her knee. Tom has ceased to care for the doo-hickey he’s working on. He   
looks at Caroline with serious, dark eyes.  
  
“Maaaaan … You know, this leads to the greater theory. The greatest theory.” He perks up, conspiracy mode engaged.  
Deacon is tight lipped, lest he laughs and dispels the entire charade. Whisper nods furiously, head back and forth.  
  
“ _ **Chaos** theory_.” They both blurt it out at the same time.  
  
Tom’s hands are in the air, wild. He nods in tempo with Caroline, “Maaaaan. This girl.” He points his finger at her,  
waggling it, “This girl gets it.” Deacon can’t hold it in anymore. The laughter rolls from deep inside him, so loud the  
others turn to see.  
  
Caroline is gawking at him for ruining the ruse, eyes wide. It takes a grand total of five seconds for a smile to edge  
its way across her face. Soon she’s laughing too. Drummer Boy is trying his damnedest to prevent the others from  
seeing the grin currently spliting him apart.  
  
“You guys played me.” Tom’s voice is shrill.”Maaaaan, that ain’t cool.”  
He throws his widget on the floor.  
“Like the cheap kazoo you are” Deacon’s voice cracks through his laughter.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
On the way out the back entrance, wading through the tunnels, Deacon has to ask, “ _What is chaos theory_?”  
They head up the steps, to the door, Caroline wavers for a bit at the exit.  
  
“The theory that chaos is the science of surprises. To expect the unexpected and believe they are all truly connected.  
That reality as we know it, past, present and future is actually a mathematically predictable preordained system. That  
if we harness the power of chaos, we can avoid the disasters that usually unfurl around us.” Caroline opens the door  
to sunshine, blue skies. They both squint a bit under the blue steel frame.  
  
“And Tom believes I have something to do with it?” Deacon is a little frazzled by the theory. “Not you. _**Us**_.” She doesn’t  
look at him, stepping through the doorway into the grass, her voice is matter of fact. _Does she believe this too?_  
  
“Tom thinks we were always mean to meet, to change something in the chaos.” There’s a small smile on her face, as she  
sets off in front of him, Deliverer drawn and ready …  
  
Deacon doesn’t move, world in slow motion around him. In the dark of his mind, the body before him, moving forward  
melts into his memories … _A kid in a vault suit runs down a tunnel. The air damp, moldy, bloody hands, bloodied suit._  
On the surface, the light is blinding. The world is brown, black …  
  
  


* * *

  
  
He can’t tell her he’s beginning to think the same thing. After all these years, how he’s been waiting to pass the gauntlet.  
  
In the sky above them, a vertibird roars into existence, loud, flames engulfing the helm. The machine crashes down the  
hillside in front of Caroline. In the sun, amidst the grass, the contrast of the daytime disaster is almost funny, but Deacon  
doesn’t laugh.  
  
“ _Chaos theory!_ ” Caroline waves her arms at him from where she stands, almost laughing.   
  
Fuckin’ chaos theory.  
  
Deacon runs to catch up with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The old poster in question : http://bit.ly/2qrmKh6  
> Licensed to Kill (1965)


	21. Cornfields and Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon finds out Caroline's favourite colour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The earth turns towards the sun.  
> Summer comes to the mountains.  
> Blue grouse drum in the red fir woods  
> All the bright long days.  
> You put blue jay and flicker feathers  
> In your hair. 
> 
> \- Kenneth Rexroth

She's bent over herself painting her toe nails when Deacon waltzes into the house, raps on the door twice. She   
has a cigarette perched between her teeth, hair swung in her face. The last of it tucked behind her ear swings   
precariously out of place with each movement of her hands. "Your ... nails ... are red? Why?"  
  
She bolts upright, as she does, all the curls falls like a light waterfall in her face. She tries to flick it back with   
just a twist of her head, cigarette flailing. _Ever ridiculous._  
  
"Ugh, Deek please, I just did my fingers too" She's furious, looking at him through the hair and smoke. He   
saunters up in front of her, a hand on each cheek, brings them under her hair. He swears he catches her sigh   
a little, like a kitten in the sun. A small purr at the touch. He pulls her hair up quickly, her eyes are closed   
underneath it, little smile on her lips. Deacon lets his eyes wonder over her. Up close she's pretty radiant, rosy   
and freckled. Her eyelashes are long, clumped together with old black make up. Which is _always_ smudged.   
_Why wear something like that out here?_ She opens her eyes, which have gone all sultry honey-coloured in the   
light. She's still smiling like a cat in his hands.  
  
She's breathing a little quicker, sees the rise and fall in her chest. He's done a pretty clumsy job of it, but her   
hair's out her face now "I don't get you,Boss" Deacon pulls back, not really understanding the moment between   
them. He cuts the tension with conversation. Her face is deadpan, all the anticipation in it a minute ago gone.  
  
"Why the fanfare? The _vanity_?" He gestures to the nail polish. All we seem to do is get shot at and bleed. Is she   
really so shallow, _so conceited_?  
  
"You think it's vanity?" She doesn't look up, face shows she's a little hurt. Deacon is a little regretful of the   
accusation. "I used to do this Sunday afternoons. In this kitchen when it was still bright blue." Deacon still forgets.   
Who she is, how different they were. Literal centuries divided their way of life.  
  
"Coop would read the paper or mow the lawn. Then we'd go watch movies or dance. I definitely can't do either of   
those things anymore so I will keep painting my toenails till I run out of polish." Her voice is a little flat, matter of   
fact but sad. The reveries are woven in to her speech. For a seconds he wonders how ordinary of a moment this   
used to be for her.  
  
Deacon regrets saying anything now, only pities her - envies her past.  
  
"You have any less cliche colors than red back then? Cos _girrrrl_ ," he holds a dainty hand in the air "That is **_not_**   your colour"  
She elbows him in the ribs, smirking “I hate red. You’ve got good taste.” She smiles while she works.  
  
“Guess my favourite colour” She looks up at Deacon for a second. He likes these games, figuring out her old stories,  
how they mesh with the new. “Mmm. Something unusual, but warm. Not green or blue. Cornfields and sunshine …”  
Deacon looks at her, trying to read her. Her eyes are boring into his, lashes heavy over her lids. Curious, slightly   
enchanted, whiskey, honey, nutmeg. “… Yellow?”  
  
Caroline smiles at him. All warm and sticky. “ _Mustard_.” She says softly. Deacon laughs. _How gaudy._  
“Am I so easy to read?” She looks up at Deacon with a serious face.   
  
“Only because I pay so much attention to you.”  
  
In the sun through the window, she shines a little brighter. Warm, bathed in yellow.  
She can’ t seem to wipe the smile off her face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starlight on your cheeks and eyelids  
> Your breath comes and goes  
> In a tiny cloud in the frosty night.  
> Ten thousand birds sing in the sunrise.  
> Ten thousand years revolve without change.  
> All this will never be again.
> 
> \- Kenneth Rexroth


	22. Diamond City Radio, Officially Endorsed by Me!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline discovers Travis's trailer.

Back in Diamond City, she sees Travis’s trailer for the first time. She gasps like a little girl. Deacon rubs the spot   
between his eyebrows in exasperation, “Please, no”. but she’s inside already.  
  
“Oh my god, look at them,” she’s rifling through the poor guy’s tapes already, thumbing through the labels.  
“Travis you have such great taste. Where the hell did you find them all?” It would be the only compliment Travis   
ever received, which you think would get a smile outta him if he wasn’t so terrified of the madwoman in his house.  
“I uhhh. I uhh err, uh. I’m kinda uhh on air.” He fumbles to cover the mic with his hands, eyes wide and hopeless.  
  
“It’s fine, carry on.” She waves her hand at him to go on without her. “So brave, _no noooble_ ,” Deacon thinks aloud.   
The audacity of it all. “Sorry … uhh for the interruption folks, there seems to be an intruder at the station. I uhh,   
cant get her to leave.” He peers around at her with suspicious, untrusting eyes. Rifling through his things. Deacon   
feels sorry for him.  
  
“Travis, I have an idea!” Caroline is practically beaming at the guy, eyes twinkling. A stack of tapes in her arms, she   
cradles them like little cherubs about the sprout wings. Plonking herself down next to the DJ, he nearly falls out his   
own skin, his eyes roll back in his head a bit. Deacon thinks he may go into cardiac arrest at this rate. She’s got the   
mic in her grubby paws.  
  
“What’s up, good people of the Commonwealth, Vault Girl here. You may have heard Travis mention me…” She wiggles   
her eyebrows in Deacon’s direction. “Whether it be rebuilding the minutemen, saving Nicky's ass or simply murdering   
deathclaws, I’ve always got DCR on! Diamond City Radio, officially endorsed by me!” She sits back, fully satisfied with   
her own good word. Deacon stifles a laugh, bites down on his knuckle, “ ** _Ri-dicccc-ulous_** ”, the word escapes his mouth.   
She shoots him a glance, grinning at herself.  
  
“Spin that shit, Travis!” She points her finger to the casettes. "Spin, I -- uhh - you can't spin -" the guy just died a little   
bit more. "Play them in this order. Don’t talk too much in between. Guaranteed a couple new follows after this.” She winks   
at him and saunters out, linking her arm through Deacon's. He drags his feet for a bit, but she’s so damn jovial.  
  
Her hair bouncing a little way ahead of him. The sun hits it, dances in the shafts. She turns around, hair in face, suddenly   
rather serious. ”You don’t think I made things _worse_ for him do you?” Deacon chuckles at her, eyebrows furrowed, pouting   
at him. “Nah boss, only for yourself.” She rubs her temple, frowning, contemplating the implications of her publicity stunt.   
Her random bouts of girlishness are the most endearing thing about her. All freckles and whiskey eyes, framed in the last   
evening sunlight that filters down through the stands, she looks like one of those old film girls.  
  
A guard disrupts the illusion, “Ay ya know Vault Girl, I ne’er really thought about how Travis found his music. Come ta think   
of it, they’re some pretty decent tracks, you’re right ya know.” She beams at him, nods furiously. He passes on his patrol.   
She’s grinning at Deacon again, finally decided it wasn’t a bad idea, “See?” She opens her arms out, half shrugs.  
  
“Cowboy hats sold separately,” she tips her hat, winks with showmanship, points her ridiculous finger guns at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An 8tracks collection of some of my favourite tracks :  
> https://8tracks.com/tinysarahistiny/collections/i-got-spurs


	23. More of a Polka Guy, Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Ro shack up at the Hotel Rexford and old ghosts haunt the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Child. We are done for  
> in the most remarkable ways.  
> — Brigit Pegeen Kelly

In Goodneighbor, Caroline stops off at the Third Rail. Always in her pursuit of music. She’s never passed up an   
opportunity to hear a new song. Deacon lets her enjoy it, has business with Amari anyway. “I’ll leave you to it, Boss”   
He puts his hand on her shoulder as he heads back up the stairs. “Mm,” she mumbles, staring head on at the stage.  
  
Deacon is always aware of the gaze between the two women. In the dim, smoke-filled room, Magnolia sings to only   
one person whenever Caroline is in the room. Later on, he heads back down into the bar, past Ham. As he nears the   
bottom of the stairs, he spots the two of them, talking off stage.  
  
“Hey Mag” she says gently. Deacon almost doesn't catch it.  
“How are you sugar, long time?” the singer’s voice is more sultry than usual, dripping in honey.  
“Same as ever.” Caroline replies.  
“You found your kiddo yet, babe?” _Babe_ , Deacon’s eyebrows sky rocket. Whisper looks gloomy, eyes turned down.  
Magnolia brushes her face gently, “I’m sorry, sugar. If anyone will find him, you will.”  
  
Deacon rolls up next to them, tickled pink by the history between them. He clears his throat to alert the pair of his presence.  
Magnolia’s hand falls to her side. “And who’s the gentleman?” she asks coyly, smiling at him from the shadow of the stage.  
“Ah, Deacon's not a gentleman. He's my partner in crime. He hates jazz.” Caroline rolls her eyes a little.  
“ _Now now_ , just that I prefer a bit of **_polka_** instead.” Her face is a contortion of disgust and utter delight, not sure which she   
feels more strongly. She laughs and Mags shakes her head.  
  


* * *

  
  
Back at the Rexford, Deacon stops at his door, holding himself up against it. Caroline is fiddling with the lock to her room,  
hands clumsy and heavy. He watches her fumble, a few beers down “ _Sooo_ , that, very public display of affection, in the bar was?”  
She turns around with fire in her eyes. Looks Deacon down, “Nothing gets past you, hm.” He seems to have touched a nerve.  
  
“Well, I dont know if you know this but I am kind of _theee_ wasteland spy” She smirks at him, lips curled  
“I flirted with Magnolia to get a rise out of Hancock. **_Which worked._** Quite magnificently … “  
Deacon laughs softly, “You’re pure evil, Whisper” Her face crumples a little, as if she regretted it.  
“I never meant any harm. When I first got here, things were … _weird_.” Deacon remembers too clearly.  
“You could say my flirting backfired when she reciprocated and I suddenly realised how fucking lonely I was. I’ll leave the   
steamy bits to your imagination.”  
  
Her door finally clicks open. She steps inside. If Deacon hadn’t always seen the way Mag looked at her, he never would have  
believed her. “Shit, Whisper. I think you just blew the minds of a thousand young men out there.” She laughs gently, the familiar  
sadness creeping in a little at the seems. Deacon begins to regret asking …   
  
In the dark of the doorway, her voice sounds far away. “It wasn’t serious, but back then it meant a lot. To feel a woman and not   
be able to think of Cooper…” she starts to close the door from her far off corner of the world, where heartache and disaster were   
still fresh. “G'night, D.” The door creaks closed, clicks into place.  
  
Deacon heads into his own room, lying on his back, he wonders what kind of woman Caroline Crawford really was. What her world had  
been like before she became a popsicle. Little blue cars and toaster ovens. Gurgling babies and cooing husbands.  
  
That night, Deacon tosses and turns. Dreams of ghosts flood his mind.  
Through a thick smoke, he searches for a woman, eyes like the old magazines. He grasps desperately, only finding nothing … 


	24. Bon Voyage, Lizard Bastard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline murders another deathclaw. Deacon gets lost in thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Dance, when you're broken open.  
> Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.  
> Dance in the middle of the fighting.  
> Dance in your blood. 
> 
> Dance when you're perfectly free.” 
> 
> ― Jalaluddin Rumi

He often catches her mouthing the words to songs, old songs most people haven’t heard. She knows all  
the words, but she never quite sings along at full tempo. If he turns his back for long enough on a good  
day, he can catch her shimmying behind him, dance-walking the streets of Boston. She kicks up her feet  
and her mop of curls bounces.  _Rodeo, Ro_. What her father used to call her. He much preferred it to Whisper.   
  
Ro sings along to most of the songs on the radio – that oldie with the woman screeching “ _shh shh shh_ ”  
is one of her favourites. “ _When you blow blow blow **blow your fuse!**_ ” That one really gets her riled up.  
  
He’s implored her to stop with the radio so many times. Music and stealth don’t go together.   
  
She almost laughs out loud in excitement when they stumble across a deathclaw during a rendition of it.  
Deacon swears she turns the radio up to attract the terrible beast. “ _Bon voyage, lizard bastard_ ” he mutters  
somewhat unhappily as Ro tears through the square, fatman on her shoulder, to meet the beast head on.  
  
The explosion blows her hair back, her hat right off her head. Orange glow from the fire makes her look a  
little sent-from-heaven, bathed in a fiery halo. _The angel of death if you're an enemy. Burn in her hellfire.  
  
_ Sometimes Deacon still stops, just to watch her. Like he's still undercover, lurking in the shadows. Ro bends  
to pick up the hat. Looks for Deacon, but he's out of sight. She sways back on forth in the same spot for a  
bit, jerking her head around, scanning the area for her elusive partner. Travis's voice permeates the air with  
ums and ahhhs between songs. Ro turns it down a little. "Deek?" she calls out gingerly. "Deeeeeacon?" She  
cups her hands around her mouth, fog-horning a little now. "Hey Deacon, yo mama called!" Behind some  
shrubs to her left, Deacon rubs the spot between his eyes in exasperation. She bellows loudly, like a kid  
calling him out to play ... "She wants you to know you have a beautiful soul and delectable feet!"   
  
_**Delectable feet**._ Deacon has to cover his mouth with both hands to cap the laughter rippling through him.  
She smiles to herself, no doubt amused by her own jokes. Bright with mischief, she turns the radio up. The  
next track is up tempo, horns and trumpets. She sways, breaks off into a shuffle then a skip. Before his  
eyes, in the streets of Boston, the scene unfolds ...   
  
_Some people know about it, some don't._ A woman's voice, melodic, jiving. Ro's back turned to Deacon, dips  
in time with each slow clap. Her arms tug back, forward. Limp wrists that clip perfectly into place above the  
music.  _But sooner or later baby, here's a diddy... Say you're gonna have ta get-_ Her knees drop then straighten,  
landing on the points of her toes. The song bursting forth right out of her mouth this time.  
  
"-Right down to the **_real_**   nitty gritty"  
  
For awhile Deacon is still, a voyeur in suspended animation. He looks out, from a far away world where Ro can  
dance safely in the streets of an entire city that doesn't want to murder her. Grass grows green through the  
bricks, the buildings are restored to their original colours. Birds and rabbits and babies. The sun rises for her.  
The moon keeps the ocean still for her.  
  
The stage is her memory, all alive around him. The magic of a time traveller. The magic of Ro.  
  
From that day on, he never asks her to turn down the Pip-Boy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The truly stupendous dance moves can be viewed here:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m01f4uAn1AA


	25. Anyone But Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Mac talk about life, relationships and the past in the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.  
> (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2)

Deacon is standing out under the awning of Sturges' place when MacCready walks out Caroline’s front door, closing it  
quietly behind him. He fumbles for a pack of smokes, pulling empty boxes out his pockets. He looks up, sees Deacon,  
who gestures to him with a full box …  
  
“Macready.” Deacon smiles at the kid. “Still killing people for caps?”  
“Deacon” he counters, “Still pretending to be anyone but yourself.”  
  
Huh. _Kid's still sassy._ It starts to rain. Sanctuary is quiet as usual. Deacon and MacCready stand in silence until Deacon  
interjects the slightly simmering tension– “So, you and Vault Girl?” …  
“Caro. Her name is Caroline.” He kicks at some rubble, fidgets, breathes deep.  
“ ** _Truly._** I had _no idea_ she had a name.” Deacon teases him. The guy is always jumpy around him. He doesn’t trust Deacon.  
  
Since Ro joined the railroad, she's only been travelling with Deacon and Dogmeat. The merc is back to business as usual,  
waiting to hear back about his kid. He’s noticeably calmer however. Deacon's even seen him doing some farmwork with  
the less useless settlers. Deacon suspects Caroline's personal crusade has shone a light on how a parent should behave.  
The merc seems to carry a lot of guilt about his little boy. Deacon knows the moral of the story is to simply not have kids.  
  
“We got close once.” MacCready mutters, embarrassed. His words are almost inaudible under the hammering of the rain  
against the metal roof. “On the road together, you know. Its nice to have somebody so trustworthy with you.”  
He looks out into the rain like some old sad noir character. Deacon almost feels sorry for him – Not his fault the worlds  
gone to shit. "She's the second person in my life to ever show me real kindness. I didn't know what to do with it at first."  
  
“We found out we were two sides of the same coin ; Caro and I." he looks a little flustered. "She uhhh --- kissed --- me --  
in Goodneighbor” Deacon almost blurts out that he was there, saw the whole disgraceful spectacle.   
  
“It hit me out the park, man. She's so sudden with her emotions. She just does things most of us would have to think about  
for a couple day – like she doesn’t have the time to lose.” Deacon nods at his observation, silent agreement.  
  
“I care about her, deeply-" His eyes dart away. "-Even l--lo--love her.”  
  
Deacon tenses, _ugh too personal._  
  
“And the kiss – was – holy sh-uh- I mean, dang – really _really_ great, but she deserves better than a guy like me. Didn’t want  
her to think I want anything more from her – on top of everything else she's done for me … I can’t ask for any more ..."  
  
He looks up at Deacon, smiles reassuringly. "I've still got lots of good memories to keep me company - _of Lucy_ ”  
“Lucy?” Deacon’s ears pricked up at the name “Your girl?”  
“-Wife. She uhh, died a couple years back. We – I –. Ferals got her." His eyes are still, far from the conversation.   
“Sorry Mac. We’ve all got a thing like that buried in our heads” Deacon pats him on the shoulder, feeling oddly paternal.  
“Yeah, damn right.”  
  
Mac stubs out his smoke. After awhile, he turns to Deacon with the same casual, soppy smile, “Thanks, old man. For the talk.  
Was actually pretty good to get it off my chest.”  
“Hah. _Whoa now_ , enough emotions for one night, buddy. I’m not the hugging type.” Deacon slaps him on the back.  
  
As Mac heads off into the rain, he's satisfied him and the kid aren’t sworn enemies after all.


	26. Skinny Dippin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Ro take a dip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sitting perfectly upright,  
> contented and pensive,  
> she holds in one hand,  
> loosely, the reins of summer:  
> -David Allan Evans

“You’re using this as an excuse to eat the rest of the Blamco, arent you?” Deacon muses in the sun.  
From behind him, Ro’s voice is dripping in honey, “Suspicion haunts the guilty mind, Deek.”  
  
He watches the hills in front of him, back turned to Caroline and the dog. The sun beats down on them,  
blue sky clear and perfect. The little pond behind Deacon looked pretty idyllic, the part of him that wants  
to rest regrets taking watch as Caroline frolicss in the water. He can hear her unzip the suit, dive in to  
the cool blackness of the pool. He imagines the water on his skin, every inch of his body. He sighs a little.  
  
“You’ve got _minutes_ before that RadX wears off. Then its my turn, Boss” Deacon reminds her the real  
dangers, shattering her daydream.“Ugh. Don’t you have any more?”  
  
“Enough for two quick dunks, then we’re heading off. That was the deal” he feels like her mother sometimes.   
Always so reckless, wanting more nostalgic comforts. Behind him on the bank of the pool, her Pip-Boy starts  
clicking, built-in geiger counter sounding the alarms bells early.  
  
“Uggghhhh!  _Okay okay okay_.” Caroline groans, rises from the water. Deacon is already prepared, sitting on  
the bank in his jeans, nothing else but his rifle. She sidles up next to him, RadX in hand, “Your turn.”  
  
She’s got his white t shirt on, nothing underneath. “You know I have to put that back on at some point?”  
She’s clean, hair wet, eyelashes heavy with water still. Deacon fumbles for his jeans, sprinting down the hill,  
away from the odd familiarity. S _weet sweet relief._  
  
Caroline laughs, the raspy, belly laugh. “CANNONBALL!” he’s in the deep dark cool of the water. …  
  
Breaching the surface,he’s met with a vision of Ro in the long half-dead grass. A breeze sends shivers down  
the spines of each individual blade. It swishes lazily. Deacon loves the sound it makes. Soft ripples of life. Ro  
and her dog stand guard in the enduring pasture- in his grimy shirt, water rolling down the backs of her legs.  
They're covered in spatterings of big reddish freckles. A big patch of vitilgo mingles with the tan under her  
knee, up her thigh.  
  
She slips a finger beneath her underwear, pulls the creeping wedgie out from between her buttcheeks. A low  
chuckle builds, somewhere deep within him and he slinks back into the black cosmos of the pond.  
  
Deacon disappears beneath the surface into the quiet, calm darkness of the water. Away from his friend and  
her unavoidable closeness ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When she stops to rest,  
> summer rests.  
> When she decides to leave,  
> there goes summer  
> over the hill.  
> -David Allan Evans


	27. Buggin' Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon finally cracks under the weight of her friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry
> 
> I’m always headed in the wrong direction,  
> sorry my life is one long stretch of running &  
> you were something beautiful on the way  
> to belief. I’m sorry love goes like a thunderclap  
> over an empty house. I’m sorry about how  
> cruel I was without trying to be.
> 
> \- Natalie Wee

It was easy at the Third Rail. This was Whisper’s house and everyone her called her Caroline out loud. The lies were   
just excuses to prevent himself from getting too close. But she was _real_ \- a true friend.  
  
It’s dark out, the stars flicker overhead, where Deacon focuses his gaze, out the house, out the window, into the   
night.  _Too cushy,_ he keeps telling himself. Hancock, Mac and himself are holed up in Caroline’s lounge again. She’s   
festive, in one of her good moods. Rounded them up to drink beer. Deacon is rather fond of beer, but he’s feeling   
cramped tonight. _Ready to bug out._  
  
“Does nobody make music anymore?” Caroline is animated, exasperated that nobody has heard of any of the endless  
amounts of songs shes been rattling off. Her face is suspended in disbelief, beer in hand.  
  
“Well I don’t know if you’ve noticed but were all **_really busy_** trying not to die” Hancock quips, smiling at her from his  
spot on the floor. He looks at home, comfortable to have the room full of familiar faces (who probably wont try to kill  
him). Deacon is not at home, _has no home_. The last few weeks on the road with Ro, he’s slipped into friendship too   
easily. Although he doesn’t quite know what the word means. Makes him jittery. _All this fraternisation._  
  
“Hey, that’s not fair. Magnolia has some of her own, you know original compositions.” Mac gives his two cents, also  
lounging leisurely on Caroline’s two seater, caked in dirt, mud on his boots.  
“Yeah, but she’s really something…” Caroline suddenly looks far away, softly out of focus.   
“You’d know” Hancock says it calm, cool, smile still playing across his face. She snaps out of her nostalgic daze, walks   
up to the ghoul, finger to his lips, “You hush your pretty mouth”, all beer induced and sultry. She drops her body down   
next to him, clumsily, elbows on the excuse for a coffee table. She’s frustrated, eyebrows knitted together  
  
“What is it you expect us to know? Not like we’re all tuned in to DCR all the time?” Hancock laughs at her.  
“That might be your problem.” Her eyes turned down, she gets sulky, like a little girl, probably thinking _they’re all so  
damn __deprived of culture.  
_  
“Sammy Davis Jr? Armstrong? Berry? - _God, **Elvis?**_ ” she pipes up.  
“I - uh, know that one about hound dogs,“ Mac stutters sheepishly. Caroline smiles, holding back the laugh building inside   
her. Deacon recognises the face. She reserves it for him, for his fumbling over not swearing, when he says something truly  
embarrassing. The girl has a soft spot for him. “You’re the only one with any sense here, Mac.”  
  
“I’m still unsure where this is all going? Whats the proposition?” Hancock chimes in, cracking open another beer.  
“These settlers never get any relief, I’m thinking a show - a dance - a shindig?” she's still frustrated, arms on the table.  
Hancock has a grin split across his face, “Well well. If that aint the best idea I ever heard”  
She clears her throat, nervous. “I uh, wanted to do something nice for you all. For helping me out so much…” There it was   
again - the kindness, the gratitude.   
  
Deacons stays silent, watching the trio from a bar stool, plugging away at his lukewarm beer.  _That’s the killer isn’t it?_ She   
still believes in things like music, a little absent minded relief. He’s got his head back, looking out the window, wondering.   
  
“Deek?”, he can feel her eyes on him, all gentle and comfy, “-your thoughts”  
  
“Well it’s a little known fact that ghouls love square dancing,” It felts curt as it comes out, his voice dull. It falls flat on the  
three  deadpan faces around him. The room is suddenly filled with silence. He picks up his gear and heads out the back,  
“I’m uhh, gonna head back out. Gotta take care of some stuff. Catch you tomorrow, boss.” He nods to her before she has  
a chance to reply.  
  
“Night, D.” Her voice is soft on his back as he leaves. She was a good judge of when it was time to let him go. We wanders   
off into the hedges behind her house, as he gets further down the slope, laughter trickles from her windows…  
  
Why is it so hard for him to deal with those close encounters - _friends_? He'd been on his own so long he'd forgotten how to  
deal with the familiarity, the support. Plus, mysterious Vault woman and two of the most violence characters in the 'Wealth?   
Deacon could never tell if they were doing any good together. And Caroline’s idea for a dance?  
  
_What is this, 2077?_  
  
Shit wasn't all buttercups and lilacs. Sometimes he wanted to shake her, scream it at her. “Rrrr.” He groans and hurls his pack  
into the dirt. Lies down, looks up at the sky. He can still hear their voices out across the hills. Sanctuary so eerily quiet all the  
time. Another thing that bugged him about her pre war paradise.  
  


* * *

  
  
After awhile he sits up, looking out over the view of the neighbourhood, her window lit up, shadows moving inside. Deacon   
wips out his old binoculars. Inside, Ro is standing in the frame of the window, her voice loud, drunk, booming.  
  
“Harry Belafonte!”she shrieks, hands up in excitement. She’s singing something with that raspy voice of hers, not quite cats  
dying, not quite ol Mags. Just really bearable. She’s got two empty beer bottles in her hands, upside down, shaking them wildly,  
hair bouncing in the light. Light, soft. It’s some kind of epileptic salsa.  
  
Deacon stifles a laugh. _Ridiculous_ , he thinks. The smile spreads further across his face. Caroline shimmies around the room,  
dropping a bottle, fiddling with the Pip-boy. Glass shatters and sparkles across the floor. Mac has tears rolling down his face,  
clutching his sides. Deacon is certain its the worst rendition of a song hes never heard.  
  
Hancock’s got her by the waist, twirling her around the room. Together they carry on the crazy lindy hop between the couches.  
Mac dries his tears and cheers them on. Deacon is certain his moves _would only put them all to shame._  
  


* * *

  
  
Just before dawn, the musketeers lie passed out in various compromising situations on the floor.  
  
Caroline at the kitchen counter, watches her misfit band of men. The silent watchman, alone at dawn. Deacon can't help but wonder,   
 _Who watches the watchmen?  Who rescues the heros in the end? When there are no causes left?  
  
_ She still fiddles with the Pip-boy. Her drinking usually ended this way, awake, steeped in her thoughts.   
  
Deacon packs up, heads for his usual spot, _the dirty mattress awaits_.   
  
Heading back down the hill, under the awning of her house, he finds himself humming a tune that carried itself through the house   
that night. Quietly, absent-mindedly, he thinks of his ghost, her pretty eyes.  _You save everyone, but who saves you?  
_  
“Deacon?“ Caroline’s voice is a whisper out the door. Surprised to see him. Honey eyes, tired and inebriated look back at  
him. That look she always gives him is so soft, her face buttery. Makes him bleed, burn. He didn’t deserve such a good friend.   
Her eyes are downturned, holding the door half shut against her, she wavers like she needs to say something.  
  
She speaks in a whisper, sad, low, “You have to stop running away from me …” Her face kills him, all eyebrows pulled together.  
He wants to drop his shit and tell her everything, but _he cant_. Something in him just wont let him. After all these years and all   
his losses … _Nothing ever stays._ In the end, he's always the only _one left alive. He can't drag anyone else down with him._  
  
Inside the house, something falls to the floor, MacCready’s guttural heaving fills the silence of the morning.   
  
Caroline turns to scold him, “Ughhh!” she moans, “Go puke in your own house, mungo!”  
  
Hancock chuckles as swings the kid over his shoulder. They both clammer through the doorway. Ro’s arms crossed, face full of   
wrath. The change in expression is a relief. Deacon pulls out of sight before they have a chance to catch him again …  
  
Back on the road, on his own for while … _Just to clear his head …_


	28. Stand By Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is it about vulnerability that can make the hand  
> draw back, sometimes, and can sometimes seem  
> the catalyst for rendering the hand into sheer force,  
> destructive? Don’t you see how you’ve burnt almost  
> all of it, all the tenderness, away, someone screams  
> to someone else, in public.  
> \- Carl Philips

Sanctuary is alive, with settlers, with faces from across the Commonwealth. Deacon is uneasy, in disguise,  
he stands against the wall of Sturges' house - come garage. Music fills the night, clear, not a cloud in the  
sky. It’s gonna attract every deathclaw in the vicinity ...  
  
When Deacon arrives, the event is in full swing. Old lights, bare and luminescent, twinkle under the awning  
of the old ramshackle houses, which all seem connected, alive tonight. Beneath it, a flurry of bodies spin,  
shake and shimmy in tune to the music blasting from an old decrepit speaker. Despite himself, Deacon is  
impressed with Ro’s ingenuity.  
  
Centre stage, the crowd jeers on two red and white blurs spinning in tandem. _“Johnny B Goode”_. Deacon  
recognises this one. She'd be proud.  Hancock and Ro kick up their feet like old world maniacs. Hand in hand,   
they jerk their bodies in wild merriment. Ro appears to be laughing, Hancock occasionally releasing her to   
shout “Go!Go! Go Johnny go!” in time with the song. Her little solos slowly kill Deacon. Feet swinging from tip   
to heel. She fakes the air guitar, rolls her pelvis, tips her hat. Little beads of sweat glisten on her forehead.   
White tassels of her jacket flinging about.  
  
Her grin is an infection spreading from face to face. Deacon warms up a little, out of his own frostiness, at the   
sight of them. Hancock swirls her back into his arms. As the song ends, the crowd applaudes. Deacon half-heartedly  
claps along with them. From his spot up the hill. Ro pecks the ghoul on the cheek, whispers something in his  
ear that makes his smile creep back an inch, replaced by disappointment. She leaves him to the horde of excited  
dance partners in her wake.  
  
Strolling up the hill to her place, she looks around, wiping the sweat off her brow, scanning the crowd, the  
strangers in the shadows, _looking for someone …_  
  
He only snuck in an hour ago, milling about in the shadows. Music’s been blaring half the night without incident.   
Deacon is restless, nervous. He hasnt seen Ro in two weeks, bugged out hard after their last encounter. His crisis   
of faith has probably torn a rift between them. All she is is good to him but he can’t deal with the proximity. He still   
carries his own weight. _Still hasn't dealt with it._  
  
From the middle of the path, she’s spotted him. Stopped dead in her tracks, she looks at him with eyes that weave  
through him. His insides struck with little daggers. She sidles right up to him, stomping up the hill. He’s gonna get   
whats coming to him.   
  
She pulls the disguise off his face, “Whoa. Uncool, boss.” Deacon manages to get it out his mouth.   
She’s furious, only obvious by the assertiveness of her actions. Her faces says nothing. She hurls the wig, the glasses,   
the hat to the floor. He swears her eyes are glossier than usual, a little wet at the edges.  
  
She’s standing inches away from him, eyes still, face calm, “You always have two choices:” Her voice isnt angry as he  
expected. Just serious and clear. “Your commitment versus your _fear_...”  
  
She stares him down in the dark of his observation spot, his face naked without glasses - His invisibility cloak. For the first time,   
she’s really seeing his eyes. She looks down, a little uncomfortable herself, “My father always said that to me.”   
Turning to walk away from him, “Tonight, you get to choose …”  
  
His insides are churning against the words as she walks up to her place. He stews in the guilt, guilt hes been stewing in  
for a fortnight already. Her face in his mind’s eye. He’s really hurt her this time.  
  


* * *

  
  
He decides _fuck it, **time to dance**_. When he sidles up to the mass of weaving bodies on the dancefloor, he gets cold feet.  
People whirling around him, he realises he doesnt recognise any of them. They really are all strangers. Caroline nowhere  
in sight. He feels lonely, reckless, isolated … They whirl and turn for awhile, partner swapping in the crowd. He becomes  
a different character for each new face he dances with. He begins to … enjoy it. _Hasnt danced in years._  
  
Trashcan Carla is suddenly in front of him, as the music changes to a slower number. He smirks at her, full of fun, mischief  
again … “Wanna dance, babe?” he puts his arm on her hip before she has time to answer and she socks his right in the jaw,  
hard, brutal. “Ow _ow ow ow **owww!**_ ” Deacon falls backwards, stumbling off the dancefloor. He’s still smiling to himself against  
the searing pain. The old bag can throw a punch. Standing on the periphery, he watches the crowd again, men and women  
dancing, humans, ghouls, probably some synths. All holding one another like some cheesy teen romance. He smiles a little  
at the niceness of it all.  
  


* * *

  
  
_Why cant I fall in loooove … like any other man._ The rich velvet of an old world voice cascades over the dancefloor, through   
the hills. _– til I don’t give a damn_ …   
  
He turns around, walks of the path back up to his spot. and there she is. In the dark, smoking in a dirty tan, leather jacket with   
tassels, red embroidery etched into it. Horses and poppies. Worn pieces of hide sway from the edges. Shorts to match and terrible   
orangey-red cowboy boots. _He doesnt have any idea where she finds these things._  
  
In the red light of the cigarette her freckles glow, eyes full of something else. _-and maybe then ill knoooooo… what kind of fooo-_  
-oool I am. The song is kinda crushing him in the gut.   
  
"These old world songs make me queasy.” He announces, to what feels like no one in particular as he walks up to her. The romantic   
number disappears in the commotion of voices behind them. Somebody has had to flip the tape. Settlers "a _wwww”_ and “ _nooo_ ” in dismay.  
  
Deacon pats down his pockets, looking for his own pack. He’s dropped them, misplaced them with one of his very exceptional  
dance moves.She hasnt said a word. Her eyes steely in the dark, she exhales smoke into the light under her back door. He fills the   
silence with words, jokes.   
  
“You see me and Carla?” he rubs his jaw, unclenching it. “Coulda had her back at mine if I really wanted to, ya know.”   
He gestures with his hands, a fake Carla. He sways his hips all erotic, “Whaddaya think? She gave me real _bedroom_ eyes”   
Deacon plants a wonderful fake mushy kiss on his fake mushy bride.  
  
In the shadows, Caroline stifles a laugh, coughs. She steps into the light in front of him, two fingers outstretched, a cigarette  
balanced between them. _A peace offering?_  She places it between his lips, touches them with her fingers. Nicotene in the air, he  
tries to stay cool as the world around him slowly fades away. She’s quieter than usual, but she laughed. He’s almost off the hook.  
  
She lights his cigarette with a gold flip lighter. The settlers have figured out the playlist again. A song fills the awkward space  
between them, takes the edge off. It’s slow again, piano, mainly acapella though, pretty sad song.  
  
“Stand by me,” Caroline says, half mumbles, stubs out her cigarette. Deacon doesnt know if its a question or an command.  
“By The Drifters” she says gently, looking up at him. _**Riiight** , the song._ “This disguise is your most ridiculous to date.”  
Deacon flinches against the flat insult, the lack of facial expression, the strange sadness in her face.  
  
His long blond wig, white stetson and yellow glasses feel perfect compared to her get up. They look like they were extras on the   
same shitty old Western show. "Y- _You’re_ ridiculous." He's yelling. " ** _Dancing?_** The 'Wealth is dancing Boss! I don’t get how y-”   
  
The lightbulb in the doorway blows, sparks fly over their heads. For a few seconds they stand in the shroud of darkness, neither   
wanting to be the first to break it.  
  
Deacon throws his smoke into the grass, they watch the red bud bud glow and die. Overhead the moon is heavy, full, casting soft  
shadows on the porch. The song echoes out over it all, slow, violins. It’s pretty. _Better than polka_ …   
  
Caroline, still standing next to him looks sadder than ever. She turns to go back inside, into the dark on her home.  
  
_If the sky that we look upon should crumble and fall._ He has to fix it. He has to get his friend back. Deacon takes her hand, gentle  
just as she always was with his darkness. He pulls her close, hand on the small of her back, steps in time with the melody. Her hand  
up his spine is warm. He shivers a little. They shuffle in little circles on her porch in the dark, under the moon.  
  
"I'm sorry, _Rodeo Ro_." he whispers the words into her hair.  
  
_And the mountains should tumbled into the sea._  She puts her head against his chest, never saying a word, neither looking at one  
another. _No I wont be afraid._ Deacon feels safe, feels full of something.  _Just as long as you stand by me_.  
  
That night, he drags his dirty mattress into the tiniest room in Ro's house. Right in there with the Mr Handy box. Before she heads  
into her bedroom, he stops her, “Ro … There were four musketeers you know” She smiles at him, freckles dancing, eyes all honey  
again. He knows she's forgiven him.  
  
Everything is back to the way it should be.  
And Deacon knows _his home is where ever Ro is_ ...


	29. Foolish Mortals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another day in the Commonwealth

As they near the bridge, Deacon pulls Caroline aside, hands her a stealthboy. He points from the shadows up the road   
to the barricades, raiders bursting from the walls. They’re kind of out in the open, crouched behind a couple old crates   
between the bridge and the city. Behind them the raiders cuss and spit from their fortress of dirt. In front of them,   
mutants prowl the streets ready to kamikaze themselves from the windows of high rises.   
  
Deacon sighs quietly, exhausted by the long day. He wants to go to bed. Ro has her hand on his arm, probably sharing   
some shred of the same lethargy. She gives him her best, “C’mon old pal” smile, all creased at the eyes. Through the   
peaceful ambience of potential violence, two figures suddenly burst through the alley in front of them. Two simultaneous   
clicks of stealthboys save their asses by seconds.   
  
They both shoot up, into the street, backing away past the revolting pack of mongrels chasing some poor chap up the road,   
alerting every raider at the barricade. The dogs are on the guy before anyone can do anything. _Another one bites the dust._   
  
Raiders shout from the wall, gathering to qawk at the dead man in the street and then the inevitable ... The little camo-boxes   
wear off. In full view of the enemies ahead, the gun-slinging duo blink back into reality. The raiders on the wall start to yell,   
taking cover on the ramshackle battlements.   
  
Deacon turns to Ro, face flat and unamused,“Insert something Shakespearean about your inevitable death here.” He is tired,   
the sarcasm caked in layers over his words. Deacon hates Boston…   
  
“Lord, _what fools_ these mortals be!” Ro announces, triumphant, as she sprints past him into the fray, gun blazing.


	30. Beer and Bleeding to Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Caroline wait out a radstorm in the midst of a medical emergency.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some day you'll sink yourself into a frozen  
> lake where paper ships were torched with the  
> names of the missing. Some dead, some vanished.  
> The flames consume all but  
> the wisp of smoke on which a single word rises  
> and water licks at the rest. 
> 
> So we are freed from a weight.
> 
> \- Valerie Meyer

They tear downhill, pack of ferals on their heels. Ro’s firing pot shots into the gaggle behind them. The weather  
is turning, the air vibrating, orange ,yellow. Deacon can taste it his my gut. Sickness.  
  
Maybe it’s the bullet wound?  
  
He yells out, “Oh god, I’m too pretty to die!” She laughs, a solid chuckle tearing through erratic pistolfire. The  
ferals are almost on them but there’s a bunker up ahead, small enough to hole them both in, ride out the storm.  
Maybe plan an assault on these half dead things?  
  
Also patch up Deacon’s bicep.  _He was so tired of being winged by raiders in Concord._  
  
Ro hurls him through the door first, without even checking what's on the other side. _What fresh mortal dangers  
await us inside?_  Deacon almost says it out loud. But there’s something in her mouth, she’s pulled the pin and hurls  
it through the air straight into the pack of ferals. The explosion sends bits of radiated meat through the air.  
  
She closes the door behind her. Deacon propped up against the wall, clutching at his arm. It feels like the bullet  
has passed through, but there’s blood everywhere. His shirt is saturated, red. Plus it hurts like a sonuvabitch, but  
he’ll keep that to himself.  
  
“My God, you’re insane. Did you think to maybe look what was in here before you hurled me through the threshold?  
What impending horror may have awaite-” _Fuck, ow._ She jabs him with another stimpak. In the city, she hadn't had  
time to chuck him one. The ferals were on them so quickly ...  
“Be quiet, old man." The words are playful as ever. The bunker is windowless but in the dark he feels her smirking at  
him. “Right, cos _I’m the ancient one_ here”, Deacon rebuttals. “Touche” The smile wavers a little.  
  
She stands and fumbles in the dark, flicks on the light on her Pip-Boy. It’s bright. Deacon is blinded by it at first.  
“See, these glasses come in handy sometimes?” He jests, she doesn’t respond.  
  
Deacon squints a little, then looks up.  
  
“ _Beer?_ ” She’s got a bottle in her hand. The whole place is packed with them, to the walls in crates. Makes sense, they  
were somewhere near the Old Beantown Brewery. “ ** _Warm_** beer, isn’t that the dream? On top of all the wonders Atom  
has bestowed upon us today?” Deacon grimaces through the searing flesh wound.  
  
Her face lights up with an idea. Mischief in her eyes, which is usually quite dangerous. “Ro? What? No- Don’t-“  
Before he can advise against it, she’s unloaded a couple shots of the cryolater into some crates on the far side of the  
tin wall. Glass shatters, splinters fly, but the beer is frozen. She’s impressed with herself.  
  
“For you, _good sir_." She hands him a cold one, just left of the absolute mess she's just created.  
“Thanks, I think … Pros and cons of the commonwealth, right?”  
  
She gulps down her beer, too quickly. Deacon watch her adam's apple bob up and down, watches the beer spill down  
her neck. The cool liquid leaves a brilliant streak through the layers of dirt embedded in her skin.  
  
It’s good for waste brew, cool down his throat. “You know that actually totally hits the spot, Boss” She smiles triumphantly  
at him, “You're welcome” _You're welcome._ Who even says something like that after fragging a pack of ferals and firing a  
cryo shot into a wall of beer?  
  
He wonders if the Commonwealth would eventually get to her, like it did to him. Eat away at her until she was cruel and  
savage? _What if she didn’t find her kid? What if they couldn’t get to the Institute?_  
  
“Hey D, check it out!” Her voice was excited, far away. _Where was she now?_  
“There’s another door back here, looks like a shower and some lockers. I wonder if –“ Suddenly another chime of laughter  
echoes through the small space. The sound of water flowing out a tap. “It works! Deek! A shower!” She swings her head  
around the door, beaming. Her dirty curls bobbing girlishly.  
  
In the white floodlight above her head, Deacon sees her freckles, the patch of vitiligo glowing extra translucent.  
“You wanna go first? I can wait... You should clean out that wound anyway.” The thought of it fills him with such  
happiness he can hardly stand it. “Sugar, you know it, but –“ Deacon tries to get up. His legs are heavy, his head full  
of fog. His arm is on fire, blood still rolling down the inside of his arm ...  
  
She’s at his side in an instant. Reckless, brazen, but always gentle. “Let me help you.” She picks him up, arm slung  
over her shoulder. They hobble to the creepy bunker bathroom. There’s a chair, a shower, towels. Somebody had been  
living here up until recently. Half used soap in the rack. His mind is still running over the possibilities if the potential  
owner when he realizes she's tugging at his shirt, tearing it off with a switchblade.  
  
“Whoa, Boss? Gotta buy me dinner first.” She smirks at him, “Shut up. We have to clean your wound. Stimpak shoulda  
started working by now.” Her voice doesn’t conceal the worry in her eyes. He wonders why she cares so much. She  
doesn't even know who he is. _All he does is lie to her._  
“Deacon, I have to see it.” He’s feeling dazed, drowsy, swatting her away. Suddenly aware of her small fingers trying  
to pry away his frantic hand, clutching at his wound. Suddenly aware there's blood on the floor, soaking his jeans.  
There shouldn’t be – any - -  
  
“Fuck Deacon, maybe that stim was bad?” Ro’s voice is scared, small.  
“Not - as old - - as you -” Through the haze, he still manages a one liner. Through the thick fog enclosing around him.  
  
“I’m not fucking around, D. I have to help you. Move your hand” His hand flops at his side. His body going limp.  
“It’s a little chilly dear, won’t you close the door?” Deacon feels an unusual warmth in his belly that fills his head. His  
voice behind a screen door, is not his own. He shivers, skin cold and damp. Around him the colours get brighter, time slows.  
“Oh God, your lips are going blue! Deacon?!” Her voice gets caught in her throat, panicked. Things are hazy, far away.  
Her face feels close to him, he paws at it. “Why don’t – you – warm them for – mmm - me -”  
  
  
  
_The world goes dark around him._  
  
  


* * *

  
  
In the dream that follows he reaches out in a thick black sludge, moans, legs heavy. He sinks into cool, black water. A thick  
liquid in his lungs - He knows he's drowning and he can't reach the shore... Where his father waits on a bench beyond the  
black sea, his back turned to Deacon...  
  
“ _Dad?_ ” his voice is a whisper in the dark. The waves crash and pull him under the surface, further away. A girl stands at his  
side. In a blue suit, she watches him from the far shore, waving.  
  
“I knew you’d come back.” She says softly. Same brown hair, brown skin. Big brown eyes.  
Deacon catches his voice in his throat, can’t speak.  
But he wants to, wants to apologise… _To beg their forgiveness_ …  
  


* * *

  
  
  
He wakes violently, under the cold shower. _Is he dead?_ He's moaning. Mumbling about his father. _His name. Her name._  
_Where is he? Where is my dad?_ He gasps, heaving, aching for oxygen. The floor is grey, devoid of much filth. He sees his  
hands, another body next to him. Caroline.  _Had she heard him? Asking for his father?_  
  
He groans as his head clears. “Thank God, you're okay." Her eyes are steeped in relief. "Shit, I thought you were a goner”  
Her hand is clutched around his tightly, squeezing the life out of his fingers. White, blue, purple.  
  
Her face is distraught, an expression he was not familiar with. He sits up clumsily. “You're okay." She helps him straighten up.  
"Turns out the last batch of stims I picked up at that raider place was just bad jet, recycled and shoved into syringes. You  
overdosed. You were dying – I – “ Deacon can’t stand the look on her face. The pain in her eyes.  
  
““Well I did tell you I’m _far too pretty_ to die” He punctures the drama with humour.   
She smiles at him, face relaxing.  
  
“You can let go of my fingers now, I think you crushed my pinky with your gorilla paws.”  
“S-sorry” She releases his hand so quickly he almost regrets saying anything. Her hands are still quite soft for a wastelander.  
  
  
  
His eyes are almost back in focus, headache slowly dissipating. As he adjusts to the light, he realizes he’s almost naked,  
save the pair of grimy white jocks he recalls pulling on that morning. She must’ve undressed him.  
  
“God, Boss. I told you you had to buy me dinner first.” She has her back to him, rummaging through the lockers in the  
corner of the room, throwing things on the floor. She chucks a white shirt at him.  
“Nothing I haven’t seen before. Here. Warm yourself up.”  
“And yourself? You look like a drowned molerat” Her vaultsuit was stuck to her, wet, bloody. He could see her wrinkled  
finger tips now. _How long had she tried to resuscitate him?_ Her face was pale. She was still shaken. Hands trembling a little ...  
  
Deacon stands up slowly and walks over to her. He pulls her into his arms, holds her tight. “I’m sorry, Ro”.  
Her body heaves against his, a single cry erupting from somewhere deep in her. The fear that had been building up in her  
for God knows how long. “Hey, its okay. I'm okay. You saved me” Her body convulses silently a few more times. He dares  
not look at her face – this fearless, stoic woman, reduced to such a mess over him.  
  
When the violent sobs stop, he lets go of her, shirt clutched to his chest. He grabs a towel off the table and goes to sit outside.  
“You clean up. I’ll hang out here, keep watch ...”  
  
  
  
It takes a few minutes for the shower to start flowing in the background. He's pulled his shirt back on, wrapped the towel  
around his waist. He must’ve looked absurd, clean in white linen, wig nowhere to be seen. He checks out the wound on his  
arm, almost closed up. She must've found a usable stimpak.  
  
There were some pock marks in his arm and his throat felt bruised, sensitive. The room has been turned on its head. Debri,  
clothing, boxes strewn across the ground. A medkit, empty nearby. _What had she done to revive him?_  
  
He was imagining all the possibilities. Her ramming her fist down his throat, making him cough all the bad jet up. Her jabbing  
stim after stim, radaway, med x, anything she had. _Did she perform CPR? Did she even know CPR? Had her mouth touched his?_  
His fingers brush his lips absent mindedly. **_An ordinary day had suddenly turned hella weird_** , he thought.  
  
  
  
He doesn’t hear her approach, still lost in his thoughts. She sits down next to him.  
“You okay there, Moon Monkey?” her voice soft, teasing him, is still concerned.  
“I was just contemplating the various marks across my body” Deacon smirks at her.  
“Bunkered down during a rad storm with a limited supply of first aid, you get a bit creative. Plus, you had more than  
enough there already..." She gives him a strange little sideways smile.   
Deacon is a little uncomfortable. Doesn’t remember the last time anyone had seen his battle scars."I think they add to  
my overall mystique." He quips, thinking about the burns on his back, claw marks scarred into his chest. The fading  
serpent stick 'n poked into his thigh.  
  
"The tattoo was a pleasant suprise" Caroline looks at him. One of her unflinching, deep scans. Like she knows something  
about him that even he doesn’t. She opens her mouth a little, pauses. Then says nothing.  
  
“I’ve still got the pretty face though, right?” He changes the subject. Her eyes light up with a wry smile.  
“Good to see you smiling again, Whisper.”   
“Good to see you running your mouth again, D. You had me worried”  
  
  
  
They sit side by side in silence for a bit, contemplating what had almost just happened. She's just saved his life with  
nothing but ingenuity and panic. The weight of it filled the room. Deacon's vulnerability leaves a crack in the facade. A  
small opening for Ro to peer into with eyes that drink it all in...  
  
She shifts next to him. Leans forward and grabs two beers from her still semi frozen wall of ale. She’s got the same  
oversized white t shirt he has on. Looks like part of an old military uniform. From the waist down, she’s only got a pair  
of solid black underwear on. The kind that sits high on the hips. As she leans forward, he has a full view of her behind.  
  
It dawns on him it’s the first time he’s seen her so closely out of the vault suit. Despite travelling together for so long,  
she’d been careful not to shed the second skin. Soft orange-tinged leg hairs mingle with her patches and freckles...  
“Beer?“ She turns to ask. “Couldn’t hurt at this point, right?” She smiles at him.  
  
Time passes slowly as the beers do. They banter as usual, idle chatter. Without his glasses, the wig, Deacon feels somewhat  
electric - exposed. But they chat, same as always. Pleasant insults and teasing hurled between them like a friendly hackey  
sack. They try to outwit each other but fail more and more gloriously as the alcohol takes hold.  
  
Deacon is especially fragile. Never was much of a drinker. He always struggled to keep pace with the maniac beside him.    
  
“So … whats the worst? You’ve been stuck in? Rad storms - I mean” Ro asks lightly  
“To be honest, they all suck just as much as the next when you’re on your own.” He replies a little glumly.  
“Ah, Deek. So melancholic.”  
“Beer and a near death experience is all it takes … “  
  
  
  
Eventually Caroline gets up, antsy after an hour or so. He’d noticed she hated being trapped in small spaces. She cracks  
the door open sightly, only to be met by a violent sandstorm. “Ugh, well its better than radiation sickness. Our stuff should  
be dry. Wanna head out?” she looks to Deacon, whose eyes are closing comfortably, propped against the wall.  
  
“Nah, Things are good in her - Not so much out there.” He gestures with his hands.  
In the doorway, she smiles at him as he happily drifts off into the darkness once again.


	31. Then Why Call Him God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline and Deacon get philosophical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a mob to a king?  
> What's a king to a god?

They both look down at the face of the kid on the floor, blood pooling under his head. Caroline is distracted  
by some distant memory again, hunched over the boy. She closes his eyes, folds his arms over his chest. After  
almost a year out in the Wealth, the gesture still warms Deacon’s old bones…  
  
“So … Old World perspective. You think we’re really being punished for something?” Deacon’s voice cuts the silence  
  
“You think there’s an all knowing guy hanging out in the clouds up there, scolding us, _his children_ , for too many  
dips in the cookie jar?” Ro is in one of her solemn moods today. She has been since they left Railroad HQ. They  
were getting closer to The Institute. Her kid was on her mind today, more than usual.  
  
“Is he not willing to prevent evil? Is he not able to? Then isn’t he just as evil for lack of intervention?” She stands  
and wipes down her gun, eyes on the dead boy.  
  
“People did this, Deek. _**Men** with too much power_.”  
  
They both look down at the Atom worshipper at their feet, hair missing, skin rough and pock-marked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a god to a non-believer?  
> Who don't believe in anything?
> 
> \- Jay-hovah & Yeezy


	32. General Hayworth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Caroline stumble across Jamaica Plain. Inside they find a Pre War gem.

On the way back from another mission, they stumble through Jamaica Plain. Deacon takes the opportunity   
to convince Caroline, "If there was Shakespeare to be found, it’ll be at Jamaica Plain ..."   
  
She's got a dubious look on her face. Side-eyeing him. They'd just collected the main _what-ya-ma-call-it_   
for the Molecular Relay. She was eager to get back to open air Railroad HQ. Eager for Tom to start.   
  
Deacon **_was not._** He'd been dreading the building of the contraption all day. _What if she just turned to porridge?_   
_What if she went dark-side?_ All ooga-booga on him.  
  
"Rumour has it everything in there is in tact. Pre War books, documents, photographs." He tries his damnedest   
to lure her in. She looks out over the square. The corners of her mouth curl up ever so slightly. Eyes a little glazed   
over. She's got some kind of memory tied to the place. Deacon can feel it in his bones.   
  
It turns out to be not so much of a treasure trove. They move through the mayor's office swiftly. Caroline running   
her fingers over all the burnt books, tattered pages. The dust caked over the memorabilia. She mourns them with   
her touch. Softly, fingers gliding over crumbling spines ... She moves with purpose, taking in the ruined building.   
  
At the end of a dark hallway, there's a room. On the door, Caroline rubs off the dust of a label that reads "Records".   
She smiles. She knows this place. Remembers it differently ... They rifle through the damaged goods on the shelves,   
the cupboards, the safe.   
  
There's a little desk in the centre of the room, decaying, worn. Caroline pulls a relatively clean book out of one of   
the drawers. She handles it gently. As if it could crumble to dust at her touch. She’s smiling the second she reads   
the spine.   
  
“Deacon,” She beckons him so softly, like she’s moved back through time. "Look." He looks over her shoulder,   
almost rests his chin in her hair, soft against his stubble. Her finger hovers over an image of a man in uniform.   
A general, decked out, medals shining. _His face is familiar._   
  
“My dad …” her voice is almost inaudible. Fingers across his face. Her dad’s a big burly guy, greyer than Deacon   
expected, same spattering of freckles. For an old military guy, he looks kind. Big twisted moustache and garden   
hedge of a beard. His eyebrows bristle in a crazy way that almost makes him laugh. _Endearing_ , just like her.   
  
She looks up at him, eyes soft. She smirks prettily, looks him right in the eyes. His heart somersaults, so close to   
her, he could count her eyelashes, “He would've really hated you”   
  
Deacon chuckles loudly, pulls back. “Awww, come on! I’m **_charming! Handsome_** \- _into a little espionage._ ”   
  
She pulls the picture out the flaps quietly. Doesn't say a word, tucks it in her breast pocket. Her hand lingers on the   
zip a little too long. She’s flipped the page over so quick Deacon doesn't get the guy’s name. He decides not to mock   
her for the sentimentality. He would of loved to have a picture left of his own father.   
  
_The legacy of good, dead men._   
  
“Uggghhhh”, Caroline suddenly slams the book shut. It drops to the floor.   
“What? Your photo not cute enough?” He picks the book up and hurriedly thumbs through. There she is, photo faded,   
younger, but he can see the strawberry locks, freckles, sunny skin. He runs his finger over it softly, to her name ;   
_**Miss Caralyn-Audrey Hayworth. Aged 17.** _  
  
Deacon snorts. She's got metal things strapped to her teeth, grinning. "Miss _Cahhh-ralyn_ -", Deacon punts his best   
southern accent. “Ma'am, I am _so pleased_ to make your acquaintance.”   
"I cant believe they spelled my name wrong. Ughhh" Her groan is unnecessarily long. It truly grates her.   
"Pet peeve, boss?" Deacon cant hide the grin on his face.   
"It’s not so difficult," Her eyebrows knot together in frustration, "Sweet Caro-line. Ro for short." She says unsmiling.   
"But Caddie, old gal. It just sounds so much _cyoot-ah_ this way." Deacon sidles up to her with the book clutched to   
his chest, all school girl cute.   
  
"Deek, don’t make me shoot you." She cocks her gun at him, straight-faced.   
"Whoa now, no need for violence, Ro." He smirks at her over the book   
  
  


* * *

  
  
After looting most of the building, they venture back outside. She’s in a huff the rest of the afternoon. Deacon lights   
two cigarettes at once, hands her one. Second nature from travelling together for so long. They sit on the porch of   
the old church-looking building, afternoon sunlight warm on their legs. Caroline looks out into the trees. A serious   
expression on her face. Shes deep in another reverie. Hair unkempt , is in her face.   
  
The sunshine makes her squint. Her eyes like honey - gooey and bright. _Caroline-Audrey Hayworth_. Deacon smiles   
at the beautiful popsicle. He wonders what his life would have been like if she’d just stayed frozen for another couple   
hundred years.   
  
She exhales smoke through her nostrils; jetstreams in the light. She seems to be grinding her teeth.   
“What’s got you so mad, boss?” Deacon is gentle with the words. "It’s just a name, Hell I’ve had many.”   
“I’m not some Mary-Sue. Wasn’t even one back then.” Her frustration is girlish, her feelings seem to be hurt by the   
misspelling of her name in a 200 year old Vet Commemoration book. Deacon thinks it’s a childish gripe, really. For   
all the things she already has to be angry about, her name isn't one of them.   
  
Besides. _A rose by any other name would smell as sweet._  
  
“The world was fucked up back then too.” She stubs out her cigarette, puts her head back against the pillar they’re   
sharing for lumbar support. Deacon does the same, feels like a lizard in the sun, comfortable, guard down. A rare   
moment. "It was beautiful. People looked better, but it was the same.” She says flatly, crossing her arms.   
  
“Yeah, well I bet you never had to shoot every second dickhead you ever saw.” He side eyes her dramatically.   
  
She sits up, takes her hat off. She runs her hands through her hair, fingers searching deep, untangling knots. She   
slings it over a shoulder, looks off into the distance again. "I grew up in Montana, in the Northern ‘Wealth.”   
Briefly, she glances at Deacon with a small smile, “We had a ranch. Used to wrangle horses. We’d ride out into the   
plains and-” Her reverie is interrupted by a stark realisation “-Are there any left?”   
  
“I’ve only seen them in pictures. Sorry, bud.” Deacon lets her down easy.   
  
Her face crumbles in grief. Sadness buried deep in her. “I can’t explain to you how this feels…”Tears well in her eyes.   
“Having seen the beauty of a lost world. **_Wild horses._ ** When they gallop. When their hooves beat the earth all at once.   
Manes in the wind. Shades of ochre, red, patches of grey. Watching their muscles ripple with the power they carry. It’s   
magic. It’s dreams alive.” She closes her eyes against the memory “I - I - wish I could’ve shown you.”   
  
_Horses._ She was a cowgirl, riding off in the sky away from him. Deacon closes his eyes. Tries to imagine a world where   
such majestic creatures ran through great plains with wild abandon. Tries to imagine drive in movies and automobiles.   
Lush green forests you could get lost in … but all that comes to mind is Caroline. In her orangey-red cowboy boots.   
  
“My old man taught me to hunt, use a rifle. We’d go hiking and camp in the woods. All the father-son activities a girl   
could ask for… Back then, you had to dress a certain way, act a certain way. My father never raised me like a girl so I   
never acted like one." She smiles a bit. “Early on. It got me into a lot of trouble, later it saved my life.”   
  
Her smile fades a little. “That’s why its important. Caroline. Not Caralyn. It’s the name he gave me. It’s all I have left.”   
  
Deacon’s still imagining her and the old man in fields, on mountains, under stars, amidst trees with golden compasses.   
Postcard-perfect. _Sans one thing._  
  
“Was there no Mrs Hayworth?” Deacon asks gingerly.   
  
“She died when I was small.” Caroline stubs out her cigarette. Mashes it into the cement.   
“Deacon. I know feelings aren’t your thing … Just seeing that photo. I … miss him so much. He was all I had for a long time”   
  
“Hey it’s no biggie. Feelings. I love feelings.” He winks at her, “You can tell me anything, pal.” Deacon tries to reassure her.   
All the sadness in her face is really killing him.   
  
She smiles at him a little. The usual Ro slowly returning to him.   
  
On the top step under the old church, the sun is low. The world is shaded in hues of orange. The wind wips up leaves at   
their feet. The world is still, quiet for two weary travellers.   
“If you don't mind me asking … Your dad? He was one of the good guys?” Deacon asks.   
“The best. A real hero. Not the sanctimonious type - he was kind, gentle, wise. He made me feel like nothing could ever   
hurt me.” She smiles back at him. A breeze picks up her hat and throws it off her head. The cable around her neck catches   
it. She closes her eyes, squinting through all her massive locks.   
  
“My turn to tell you all ‘bout my old man?” Deacon grins at her. Pulls out another cigarette, hands her one. He’s already   
thought of a couple great backstories. _Brotherhood Elder. President Eden._ She twirls it in her fingers. Looking through him.   
  
“No. You’d only be lying.” She smirks. “I do have theories about you, though.” Caroline leans in to the flame he’s holding up   
for her. She puffs, exhales. “You have tells, between the layers.”   
“Me? Tells. My lady, you insult my honour.” Deacon laughs, shrugging off his nerves.   
  
“You’re too well-read to be some common scavenger. I mean  - _ **Latin?**_ You got yourself a proper education somewhere.” She’s   
looking at him through the glasses, trying to suss him out. “You’re far too laissez-faire about wasteland life. Which could mean   
a couple things - _**you’ve survived much worse.**_ Or like me, you came from a place so different, all you can do is just be.” She’s   
smiling at him. On the surface, not taking the conversation too seriously.   
  
But Deacon is nervous. Is almost sweating. _Caroline has a keener eye than he thought ..._    
  
“And the Goddam face-swapping, **_the lying._ ** You’re literally trying to be somebody else. You’re running away from your past -   
which must be deeply rooted in your real identity.” She wiggles the cigarette, extension of her fingers, at him. _Ipso facto._  
  
“And who am I?” Deacon wobbles spooky fingers her way. “My **_truuuue_** identity?”   
  
“Havent figured it out yet. But it doesn’t matter what your name is." She puts her head on his shoulder. "You’re Deacon to me.   
My best friend.”   
  
  



	33. The Molecular Level

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Railroad build the Molecular Relay. Caroline gets inside the Institute while Deacon stews in his worry.

She stands on the platform, winking at Deacon the split second before she vanishes - _One last trick before_  
 _the end?_ Deacon couldn't hide the emotions on his face. She must've seen the fear, nerves, dread. Above all,  
he'd feared she'd just turn to goop before them.  
  
But it worked. After all these months of construction, she was gone. _Adios_. Disappeared completely from  
Deacon's plane of existence. The months between here and there ; gathering intel, gathering equipment,  
parts, bits and pieces. _Deacon finding a friend._  
  
This cold plane of existence, empty now without her. _Fuck_ , he thinks.  
  
Everyone else is silent and he wants to scream at them. Lose his cool at them. A million scenarios rage on  
through his head. Until it all dims back into the strange calm he always acts through.  
  
Dez is behind him - hint of resignation in her voice - "All we can do now is wait”. He thinks she’s trying to  
comfort him. Like she shares his fear. She knows what Whisper means. _Whisper; a secret, a quiet treasure_  
 _shared between two._  
  
Deacon doesn’t know what’s taking hold of him. _All alone. Again. The safety net retracted._  
  
His head runs a mile a minute. For the other part of his soul, his friend, his everything. What if the temptation  
of all that lies within is too strong? What if that was the game all along? She’s always made it implicitly clear -  
**find her son.** _And when she does? What then? Ally with the bogeyman?_ It wouldnt be the most ridiculous decision  
shes had to make since waking up. She was living in a world of total extremes - simple science fiction to her mere  
months before.  
  
“Shhiiiiit man!” Tom bugging out breaks his train of thought. “That just happened! I’m telling you - if she comes back,  
this proves a whole lot of my theories.” He’s knee deep in papers, gizmos, thoughts. “ _Tel-e-por-taaation_ , maaan.” He  
picks everything up and shuffles off inside, engrossed in his wild theories.  
  
Deacon switched off at **_"if"_**. He takes off his glasses, rubbing his head. Everything was feeling a little out of control.  
Dez places her hand on his shoulder, “Have faith.” She says it softly as they watch Tom stumble into the little green  
shack beyond the relay. Parts and contraptions overflow from it. A techno clutter they’re all so used to seeing over  
the past months. Jumbles of errors, prototyping, Tom’s rants, insomnia. His delusions in and out of paranoia, chem  
induced lucid dreams. He’d thrown himself into the deep end to get the job done, while Ro paced the yard …  
  
While they filled their idle hands with saving anyone else who needed saving …  
  
Deacon got up, dragged a mattress out into the rusty shed, doors falling off at the hinges. _Sunshine Co-Op._ He looked  
out from his vantage point between the frame of the building. The relay silhouetted against the growing blackness on  
the horizon. It was almost night, clouds soft and husky. The stars in the distance were a comfort, familiar guiding lights.  
  
He decided all he could do was wait it out, hoping it’d only be a few hours. And if she never came back, if he’d really lost  
his only friend that night ... _Then Hell is truly empty and he’d turn to the devils._  
  
The Commonwealth was quiet tonight, sans the sound of violence in the hills. Some far off place that didnt need their help  
tonight. Far away from Deacon and the whirlwind inside him.  
  


* * *

  
  
It takes three days. Some of the worst of his life. It’s early in the morning, sun not yet over the hills, when she zaps back into  
existence. She materialises right in to Deacon’s lap, crushing him in his sleep. Abruptly awoken, he fumbles for a pistol.  
"Ow, shit!” The impact forces the breath out of him and it takes a couple seconds to realise ...  
  
The warm butterscotch curls, whiskey eyes looking down at him. As the recognition passes over their faces, she crumples into  
him, her eyebrows pulled together, bottom lip wavering. Deacon takes her face into his hands without thinking. Pulls her into  
his chest. His hand woven into her hair, behind her ear. He keeps her in a vice grip.  
  
She sobs. Loud, messy convulsions that wake the rest of the camp. Dez and Tom slowly rise. The others follow. They stand like  
quiet watchmen to her agony. Deacon cant stand it. He wants to shush them away. She doesnt need an audience - but the  
audience needs to see her - back and broken - still on their side.  
  
His shirt is drenched, her hair is soaked. Between his fingers, it’s downy, smells like flowers. _So clean._ The big dollops of curls  
bounce as she heaves against his body, light. He pulls her closer, his cheek pressed against her head. The others start to turn  
away, taking Deacon’s _outright impossible_ display of affection as a sign to leave.  
  
Glory comes up to them, her hand is gentle on Ro’s back, “It’s okay, you’re back. _We’ve got you._ ” Deacon is moved by the kindness  
in her voice. He’s glad he has head turned to her, else he might start goddam crying himself. _My friend hurts and I die inside._  
  
“Take all the time you need. We’re here for you when you're ready” Glory’s voice is quiet, personal. She walks away, ushering the  
others inside …  
  
Deacon and Caroline stay like that for a long time, his vault girl crumbled into his lap. He breathes her in absent-mindedly, vice-grip  
unflinching. Her arms around his waist are even tighter. She’s squeezing the life out of him. He realises shes not wearing her usual  
ridiculous gear. Hat’s missing, no vault suit. Her clothes are clean, laundered, white. They make him feel uneasy. Smelling like a bed  
of roses.  
  
A bag stuffed full of things lies on the floor next to them, a strange logo across it. Her tightly coiled fists loosen up his back, palms  
flat travel upwards. The motion startles him. A sudden wave of heat moves through him. Hes aware of his own heartbeat. Nobody  
has touched him like this in years. _What was she to him?_ He was unsure friends were as starved for one another's touch.  
  
She’s stopped crying. Deacon realises the world is silent around him again. Crickets sing in the thicket beyond. It’s dark in the early  
morning, stars hazy through the clouds. “Deacon.” She mumbles against him, sadness in her voice.  
  
His heart breaks for her. He tucks her hair behind her ear so he can see her face, _maybe a little too gently,_ a little to familiar. The  
little patch of vitiligo under her eye is luminescent. He’s grateful to still see it there. Everything about seems brighter - freckles, the  
eyes, all honey billowing over under her eyelashes. He catches himself in the moment, looking at her for far to long. The curve of her  
lips, how close to his. _Were all pre war girls this beautiful? He doesnt know if he says it out loud._  
  
“Deacon. You smell … terrible.” And just like that the spell is broken. She laughs through a fresh wave of tears pooling under her  
lashes. Silent this time, they roll in big droplets down her cheeks, all red and blotchy. He tries to brush them away.  
“I was thinking more along the lines of “Honey! I’m home!”as you fell from the sky into my arms and we could ride off into the sunrise”  
  
She smiles, eyes lit up like little fires in two little lamps that were dead a minute ago. She gets up, brushes herself off, dries her face  
on his shirt. “I’m so glad to be back - _back home._ ”  
  
The word catches him off guard. _Home._ After all, she still considered it that. _And she wasn't home._  She was at Sunshine damn Co-op.  
In Deacon's lap.  
  
They sit together for while, still in partial embrace. It’s warm and comfortable. Deacon is glad all prying eyes have gone back to sleep.  
They drift off like that together on his grimy bedroll. Everything back to normal, stars up above where they should all be.  
  
Right before he rolls of into the comfort of darkness, the relief of a good nights rest, he thinks to himself …  
_If she’s playing him, hes fallen for it hook line and sinker._


	34. Mother of Synths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon heads back to check up on Caroline. She's not doing so good.

She says nothing. Takes long walks on her own. Dez lets everyone know there’s a full report up at HQ. The team   
should read it. Give Whisper some space. Which everyone rightly does.   
  
Deacon is genuinely worried for the first time since meeting her. The monitor blinks in and out of existence in   
front of him - Like Ro did days before. His stomach twists. The report is so - impersonal. So cold.   
  
The trip back to sanctuary is arduous on his own. He decided to give her a couple days to herself, to figure shit out.   
It’s what he’d have wanted himself. When he’d woken up back at the Co-op, he was alone. A little cold without her   
tucked into his side. She’d snuck off.   
  
Slowly the others made their way back to HQ, waiting on news from Ro. A task assigned to her partner. The report   
she’d punched up on Tom's terminal in the shack is thorough, detailed. Tunnels and passages, layouts of the interior,   
people and positions. This Father guy being head honcho, wanting to make her an agent. Her own son was ten years   
old now, locked up in a glass cage.  
  
“Never seen the girl so quiet - so despondent, man” Tom’s voice was shrouded in worry on departure, full of heart ache.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
It’d been two weeks since. As he made the trek up the bridge toward her place, he could hear pot shots, slow, sluggish.   
Sounded like target practice. The tinny smack of bullets through cans. It was cloudy, a chill in the air. Heavy drops were   
starting to fall from the sky, slowly, waiting for release. Deacon always loved the rain - perfect for a reunion.   
  
As he rounded the curve, pack slung over his shoulder, rifle at his hip, the eerieness of Sanctuary in bad weather struck   
him again. Everything shades of grey and blue, obscure settlers mingling in the growing mist. The wind nipped between   
the corn … and the pot shots broke the chill unceremoniously. They were coming from behind Ros house.   
  
  
Deacon backed up a bit to make sure, stood and listened. _Pap! Pap! Pap! **Ping!**_ She hit a can every second couple shots.   
Deacon is suddenly aware of Preston sidling up to him, out of Sturges' garage. He pulls his coat tighter around himself.  
  
“Hey man. The general has been pretty scarce lately. I think you should give her some space. Hasnt left the house for a day   
or two again.” The guy's face is dour. Big brown eyes full of worry.  
  
"Again?” Deacon picks up on the word.   
“Yeah. She holed herself up tight when she got here a week ago, all on her own. Took the dog in and never came back out.   
Had some settlers mention her being up before dawn, out in the hills, by the vault.”   
“Ah.” Deacon was uneasy, not sure what to expect, how to approach her.   
“Deacon, man. What the hell happened?” Preston's face is fraught with questions. Deacon felt for the guy. In the dark, his idol   
falling apart around him. He puts his arm on the his’s shoulder, smiles sadly and turns for the driveway …   
“Wait ..” Preston runs back to the other house, grabs a crate of food, water. “Give this to her. Some settlers wanted her to have it.”   
Deacon nods.   
  
He pokes through the supplies - clean water, cola, fresh veg, cigarettes. Kindess begetting kindness. As he gets to the hedge,   
the pot shots get louder. Vines sprawl between the pillars of the awning, rusted and creaking in the wind. He fumbles through   
them and there she is - in the grass, blanket around her shoulders, cowboy hat tilted.   
  
She squints down the barrel of the Deliverer, one eye squeezed shit. Pulls the trigger, misses. Rows of cans lined up in the old   
garden furniture before her. She’s kind of slumped against the wall, stack of beer beside her. Most empty. She’s drunk.   
  
“Ïs this what a crisis of faith looks like, old buddy, old pal?” Deacon hopes his humour isnt beyond reprieve, isnt too insensitive.   
She sighs, looks at him, “There any smokes in that box?” She nods towards the crate he’s carrying.   
“Right on the money. These settlers really like you.”   
“Light me up, bog boy.” She takes aim at another can, squeezes an eye shut.   
  
Deacon slumps down next to her, slips a fresh cancer stick between her teeth. He lights it, she puffs. Pulls the trigger. She misses.   
“You’ve lost your touch, boss.” She dumps the gun in his lap, disgruntled, frustrated. "Who. Dangerous!"  
“Ugh, you do it. At this point it’ll be satisfactory to see anyone hit the thing.” She slumps further against the wall.  
  
Deacon smiles at her, glancing at the empty bottles littered around her. She brings her knees up around the blanket, wraps herself in   
tight. Deacon takes aim, carefully centres on a can, fires. _Pap! **Ping!**_   
“Direct hit, pard’ner” He tips an imaginary hat at her, best Texan drawl.   
  
The heavens break on them. Heavy unrelenting rain. For awhile, Deacon isnt sure she’s ready to move.   
He grabs her arm, “C’mon you old drunk. You’ll get tuberculosis out here” He swings her around his shoulder. Her feet heavy beneath   
her. She shrugs the soaked blanket off into the grass. Deacon notices it’s blue, old moon monkey stamped all over it. Too small to be   
for adults. Beneath it, she’s got an oversized white t shirt, same black high rise underwear. She must be cold …   
  
Inside he slumps her down on the couch. Her eyes are heavy under the influence. She looks goofy. Her ridiculous cowboy hat fallen off,   
has served the purpose of keeping her hair dry. He heads to the ramshackle bathroom, grabs something to dry them off with. Her house   
is always so neat - so devoid of debri. In the bathroom, he almost gasps - **_Towels!_** The strange bag with the unknown logo lies on the   
shelf, all crumpled. Some stims, syringes, a brand new camera, clean clothes, more towels. He pulls the towel to his face - soft, he inhales -  
long and self-indulgently. The same logo adorns the edge of it. _The Institute._   
  
Deacon remembers where he's seen the symbol. It's the Proportions of Man, that Da Vinci piece. _Of man._ How **_warped._**  
  
When he gets back, she’s propped herself against a few gross straw pillows, hair spilling over in her face. She looks like a drunk mess,   
half dressed, sprawled on the two-seater. Deacon pads himself dry then passes her the towel. She swings it around her neck, under her   
hair, yanks it back and forth clumsily, dries off her face.   
  
“I see you brought the most important things back with you?” Deacon tries it on for size - direct mention of her nightmare.   
She sits upright, elbows slumped on her knees. She takes deep drags of the cigarette, hardly any expression on her face. She’s mulling   
something over, thinking about whether she should tell him. She inhales the rest of the nip, snuffs it out on the couch. Right there on the   
_good furniture_. Drunk and uncharacteristic.  
  
Deacon feels like hes walking on a tight rope. Something about to push him over. The rain pelts the tin roof above them. She finally looks   
him in the eye. She’s fully coherent. Her eyes are dark today, in the shadows of the storm brewing outside. He’s realises the house is dark   
\- no lights - no candles - no fire. A chill runs up his spine. _How long has she been living like this?_ She looked tired - pale. Still resigned to   
some doom she hadnt yet told him about.   
  
Deacon’s internal ramblings are cut short when she finally announces, with curt severity, “I am … the mother of all synths.”   
  
The room is quiet except for the rain, which is a welcome crescendo to the chaos in Deacon’s mind. He feels like she just dropped the   
A-bomb on him. “Shaun isn't the kid in my report. He’s Father, in his sixties. The Institute stole him from me for his untouched DNA.   
Radiation free, prime sample for synthetic organics.” Her eyes are hollow, dark circles beneath. She was a shadow of herself. “He feels   
the execution of his father was …” Her voice is layered in shades of anger, something sarcastic, furious, “… regrettable.”   
  
Her legs are littered with fat freckles, little spatterings of vitiligo. In her t shirt, she looks so vulnerable, so sad. Hair falling in her face,   
hands running through it in sorrow. He can’t find the words to comfort her.   
  
“He’s not my kid anymore, Deacon.” She’s on her feet, at the wall, shelves full of mementos, Vault Tec lunchboxes, books, potplants.   
She drags her hands over them and it all crashes to the floor. She lashes at the shelves. Slams her fists down on them in her fury. Barefoot,   
she fumbles through the debri around her, blinded and heart broken. “This was all for nothing”   
  
She claws at her hair, pulling at it, falling apart. Deacon’s there with her in an instant.They sink down on to the floor again in the same vice  
-grip hug, her sobbing, heaving against him. The terrible violent upheaval of her tears. Deacon breaks for her.

He'd told her _he was a synth._  Man that was fucked up. _Did she think she was his mother?_ Bad move in retrospect.  
  
After awhile he helps her onto the couch, pulls a blanket over her. “Stay” she asks of him, quiet and lonely, holding on to his arm.   
  
He does. Right next to her. Eventually, he falls asleep sitting up. At the foot of the couch. The rain on the roof is perfect. Still and comforting.   
Caroline on the couch, is peaceful when she sleeps. Long eyelashes fluttering. Chest rising and falling as it should.  
  
The gravity of the situation weighs over him, crushing him. He realises he can never tell her everything. After all this time it will only be the   
nail in the coffin. But he wants to. _Needs to finally tell someone._


	35. Burial ; We Should Let This Dead Guy Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Caroline bury her husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus Christ, girl  
> What are people gonna think  
> When I show up to one of several funerals  
> I've attended for grandpa this week  
> With you  
> With me

“Come and fucking see for yourself … The vault is still chock full of ice! You still don’t believe me? Come. It’s  
right up the road.” Ro is livid, shrieking at Deacon, who’s only trying to sleep on the ruddy old couch in the  
lounge. He wakes in a daze, her yanking him out of bed. Luckily he is still dressed. He’d fallen asleep that  
afternoon, as she cooked something horrendous for her, Mac and Hancock. _The Four Musketeers._  
  
There were still beers strewn over the floor, on the table made out of cinderblocks.  
  
“I woulda paid 50 caps to be with you the first time you saw one of the crabs." Deacon had teased her.  
  
"I’ve read the books, did everyone seriously learn caculas back then? Ha! Were you training **_mathletes_**?” He was  
drunk, riling her up. Recycling one liners.  
  
“Deacon. All your lies! Your running! You don’t even know whats real anymore! After all this time, you and I …  
you should trust me …” _What has he done to make her so furious?_  He face is red, her eyes are red. She’s been  
crying? What did he – _ah – oh. **The recall code.**_  
  
They’d all been goading her that afternoon, what felt like a harmless, playful mix of beer and banter. No way she  
was 200. Body like that. Hancock had demonstrated how ghoul skin flakes off to the touch and Mac had almost  
projectiled all over the room. Other than that, they’d teased her for loving synths. For being too kind.  
  
Things got serious for a moment when Hancock implored her to be more careful with the people she surrounds  
herself with. Her rebuttal had been, she knew each person in the room well, trusted each with her life.  
Hancock had raised his beer, “Well then can toast to that!”  
  
Fast forward to Deacon’s current predicament ... He can only imagine his drunk insults had pushed her over the  
ledge. Has been sitting festering about it for hours. Finally come up with a solution – _Which was? Where were  
they going? What did she say earlier?_ It’s dark but he cant mistake the sound of the floor cranking downwards  
beneath him. _The vault._ **Fuck the vault**.  
  
Deacon isn’t prepared. He's hung over, tired. What the hell was in that shit Hancock had fed them? She drags him  
to the pod right at the end. Her face kills him. Still furious, wild with anger.  
  
“Meet Coop” her voice is cold in the silence The room is icy, too quiet, Deacon almost vomits. A pale handsome dead  
man lies in the pod before him. His tongue goes numb. The gravity of it hits him.  
  
“Today, you're gonna help me bury him.” She lets go of Deacon’s arm. Throws him to the ground. She has his recall code  
balled up tightly in her fist. He recognises the paper. She moves forward, opens the pod. Steam rises up.  
  
Deacon is freezing, in his shirt and jeans. The man’s eyes are closed, bullet wound to the head, executed. His face is kind,  
gentle, like hers. That same unusual softness about it. He watches Ro put the second wedding ring she wears back on his  
finger. Deacon finally understands this is where it belongs – she wouldn't put that ring back on a stranger.  
  
Deacon is wracked with nausea. The lights vibrate, bore through his skull. He's losing his cool. He knows she's right, about  
everything. Shes probably never lied to anyone, unless it was soaked in sarcasm. The woman is 232 years old. Born before  
the bombs fells. The grass was green, mutants didn’t kamikaze nuke you in the streets …  
  
Deacon hits the floor, crumpled, nauseated, defeated. He heaves, convinced he's about to blow chunks all over Cooper Crawford’s  
deathbed. He's guilty. He's awful. He's a fraud. A Liar. The only emotions that could do this to him.  
  
Everything shes ever told him is the truth, completely. She's always been on his side. And all he's done is lie to her. Even when his  
own truth could have saved her a million times over.  
  
Usually he can deal with these breaks in deceit. He was a veteran after all, but eventually a guy loses his nerve …  
  
There's a presence over him. Still enraged, she stares down at him. Without flinching. “This note is bullshit, Deacon.” She tears it up,  
throws it at him. “You honestly think I thought _you were a synth_? You can lie all you want but **_don't_** assume I'm _foolish enough_ to believe   
everything that comes out your mouth." She looks like she wants to kick him in the head. "You can trust ** _me_**. We can trust **_each other!_** "    
She looks at her husband in the frozen pod. "We're going to bury Cooper and then you're _never going to insinuate I'm an idiot ever again_."  
  
Deacon might pass out.  


* * *

  
  
They bury him awhile later, once Deacon can breathe again.  
  
In the garden behind her house, away from prying eyes. Codsworth brings them a sapling to plant over the mound of dirt left in the  
weeds and grass. They slap together a cross. She hammers a holotape into it.  
  
Deacon doesn’t ask this time. In one final grand gesture, she burns the vault suit in the back garden.  
  
“We’re gonna save the whole Goddam Commonwealth together” She turns to Deacon, fury now gone, just soft and gentle again.  
“Yes ma'am” is all he can muster, considering the circumstances.  
  
He smiles at her under the glasses.  
She smirks back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We should let this dead guy sleep
> 
> But I'm unsure of so many things  
> Oh, someone's got to help me dig  
> \- Father John Misty


	36. Stimpaks and Serums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline gets Virgil's serum, almost at the cost of her own life. Deacon scrambles to save her. Then spills his guts all over the place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell is yourself and the only redemption  
> is when a person puts himself aside to feel  
> deeply for another person.
> 
> \- Tennessee Williams

It’s been a few days since they buried Cooper. A few more days of her disappearing in and out of the Commonwealth. He waits  
for her at the house with Dogmeat. One day she gets back, bleeding profusely. She materialises into her room. Deacon hears  
the crash first, her voice in pain, crying out on impact.  
  
Dogmeat barks and runs inside. As he gets through the door, he hears the dog whimpering. Ro is clutching at her side, biting  
down hard on her teeth, blood gushing from her body. Deacon flails, instinct taking over. _The bed is turning red.  
_  
“Ro, what the fuck? What’s happening?'' He forces the words out. Her face is losing colour fast.   
  
  
“Need, a stim. I - I - ran out” Her breathing is labouring. Deacon starts unpacking her lockers, bags on the floors, lunchpails,  
medkits. He finds nothing. He turns around, in a panic as Dogmeat runs out the door.  
  
There's something in her hand. She thrusts it into his leg, “G- give it to Virgil. I- got it, his “ She breathes hard, wincing against   
the pain “ _-his serum_ ”. Deacon pushes down on the wound, looks gory -turret damage. Chunks of her are missing. She's been torn  
open with such force. She moans, eyes drifting off. He slaps her on the cheek quickly to force her awake. This is serious.  
  
“Hey, hey Ro. Stay with me, buckaroo. You’ve got plenty gun-slinging days left in you.” She laughs softly, drowsily. Her hand is  
holding his, over the bleeding gash in her belly. “Deek, do y- “ Her voice gets stuck between a gasp of breath, she’s really  
labouring now. “Do you - _trust_ me?”  
  
Fuck, he’s welling up. His voice catches in his throat, but he pushes through the emerging sob, bellowing out the windows  
“HEY! We need a fucking stim in here! MAC! Preston! _Sturges?_ ” He turns back to her, her hand falling limply against his, shoulders  
slumping over. Blood is dripping off the duvet cover onto the floor. He can't do this again. He can't lose Caroline.  
  
“Codsworth! Anybody?” Deacon’s voice falls flat. He smacks her cheeks again, a little life in her eyes still. She manages to look up,  
head lolling back a bit. “You're the only one in this whole Goddam Commonwealth I trust. Don't die on me, Ro. You cant die on me.”  
  
He presses his forehead to hers, the bridges of their noses pressed tight. He squeezes down on her stomach. The breath leaves her   
chest under the pressure. “I wont.” She whispers, eyes open, hazy, her breathing is shallow against his face.  
  
He’s overwhelmed. Face wet with tears… Dogmeat bursts in through the door frame, stims between his beautiful canine gnashers.  
"Ah, thank God. Thank all the Gods.” He grabs for one, pops it into her stomach. “Good dog, good furry bastard.” Deacon quips   
through his sniffles. He jabs another two into her for good measure. Then props her up in bed behind the pillows.  
  
Moments later, Codsworth and Preston appear, Preston a mess, sweating, barely able to breathe - only one stim in hand. Deacon has   
his back to them, has never been so grateful for the glasses. He brushes the tears off his face, smears them in blood in the process.  
  
“Oh … my … goodness” The words are soft, absolute disbelief from the Minuteman. “Miss Caroline!” Codsworth whirrs in despair,   
“Ohh, Miss Caroline, we simply couldn't find any of the blasted things!” Dogmeat barks happily at the two of them.  
  
“It’s cool, the mutt brought a whole mouthful. Just in time. Boss’ breathing is almost back to normal, blood seems to be stopping.   
Just - Leave us be for a bit” Deacon struggles to find the energy to speak at all.  
  
“Yes sir, Mister Deacon” The handy whirrs loudly out the door. Preston nods quietly, "I'm sorry we didn't help in time." He walks away   
slowly with the familiar sad shuffle of sluggish footsteps.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Dogmeat gets onto the bed with her, nose wedged under her arm. Deacon gets up to grab a towel, clean her place up a bit before she   
wakes. He’s on his hands and knees, mopping up the bloodstained floor under her bed when she stirs, eyes flickering open.  
  
“Hey” she smiles gently at him.  
  
He sits up, still on the floor, closer to her side. “Hey to you too.” Deacon still feels like a bit of a live wire. His eyes red under the glasses.   
Her hand comes up to his face, pulls them off. “You crying over _me_?” Her voice is still soft, almost inaudible, kind and gentle. The look on   
her face is a mixture of a comforting smile, dashed with some guilt.  
  
“Me, _uhh_ , nah. Just got some - you know - _things._ In my eye” He’s so relieved she’s lucid. Still lying very still on the bed, other arm coiled   
loosely around the sleeping dog. She holds her free hand against Deacon's face, runs her thumb over a cheekbone. He unconsciously leans   
into it, feeling somewhat vulnerable, remembering her breath against his face, almost dead.  
  
“There are going to be more days like this, D. Coming up, soon." She grimaces a little, pain still not worn off.   
"…We’re going to have to act soon” Her voice is tired. Her words come through a fog Deacon is getting lost in …  
  
“Hey. I got something important to say. … something I shoulda told you the second I stopped calling you Whisper. I really appreciate you   
putting up with my bullshit. Truth is, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a…” He wavers at the next bit, “-friend.  
  
She's looking at him, eyes calm, tired. Maybe this wasn't the time. He pauses. _Shit if he doesn't get this out now, he never will._  But the second   
he opens his mouth, he knows he can only do a  _half truth_...  
  
“Look, I’m a liar.” Her brow furrows a little as Dogmeat shifts against her side. “When I was young, a hell of a long time ago, I was…” Deacon   
breathes slowly, finding the words … “well, scum. I was a bigot. A very _violent_ bigot.” So far all true.   
  
Ro’s got her thumb at the tip of his cheek, still a little damp. She wipes away the moisture. Her fingertip soft against the thin skin. He realises   
she’s seeing him without glasses for the longest duration yet. _Not sure if she’s actually listening._ Her eyes flit over his face, his crowsfeet, the   
auburn eyebrows, the dark circles and sandpaper stubble. His heart bellyflops, so uncomfortably exposed with her and the deep scan of the   
whiskey eyes.  
  
“I, _uh_ , I ran with a gang, back in University Point. We called ourselves the ‘UP Deathclaws’, and for kicks we’d terrorise anyone we thought was   
a synth,” he fumbles over his words, now covered in a layer of changed names and faces. “We kept egging each other on. Started with some   
property damage, and eventually graduated to beat downs. Then, inevitably, a lynching...”  
  
Her fingers stop tracing his outlines. Her eyes lock on to his. “...Looking back, I’m not so sure it was a synth.”  
  
“I’ll withhold judgement til the end,” she says quietly. Her voice is hushed, like they’re at a funeral.  
  
“I left my ‘brothers’. Broke all contact, and just left. Time passed, I became a farmer. Then one day, I found someone.” Her eyes on him are too   
much, he looks at his shoes, describing his ghost with a different name … “She saw something in me I didn’t know was there. Barbara, well,   
she was…” Deacon shifts awkwardly at Caroline’s bedside. _Even after all this time,_ he felt dirty even speaking of her … “ _She just was._ ”  
  
“What was she like?” Ro’s voice again, the calm genuineness of it calms him down a little “She had a smile like on those magazine covers.” His   
voice perks up a little. “Her eyes…”  
  
“Barbara and I, we were trying for kids, eking out a living. Then one day, it turns out my Barbara,” He swallows, visions of her still clear in his   
memory. “She was a synth. She didn’t know that. I certainly didn’t. I don’t know how the Deathclaws found out, but… there was blood.”  
  
Deacon tries to shut down the memories flashing through his mind, squeezes his eyes shut. He feels like he might start weeping again …  
Come to think of it, back then he was so angry, he hadn't cried. Hadn't cried in years …  
  
“So much blood.” He looks down at Caroline stained all red, blood drying to her palms, face still bluish … “I don’t remember much after that.   
I know I killed most of the Claws. I must’ve made a big impression. The railroad contacted me, figuring I’d be on their side. Seeing that I lost   
my wife...”  
  
He shrugged, still looking away from her, feeling strange for all the layering of his lies this time. The core of it was true anyway. That's all he   
could muster after so long. “... And, well, what I did afterwards.”  
  
“Come here,” She pats the bed next to her, all still drenched in her blood. He climbs in next to her, wants to hold her, but doesn't. Lest he   
reopens the wound. He’s coiled up next to her, much like the dog, her arm around him. Her fingers are colder than usual, blueish. She strokes   
him without saying a word. “I don’t even know why I lie anymore. But I can’t tell the truth.” He was still compelled to spill his guts, let it out til   
there was nothing left to tell her - _nothing really important._   
  
“Everyone -Tom, Dez, you, even that asshole Carrington- they deserve to be in the railroad. I don’t. I’m everything wrong with this whole fucking   
Commonwealth an-”  
  
“You’re the only friend I got.” He choked, the dam bursting again. He was grateful they were quiet tears, not as ugly as hers were - as loud and   
violent. “I don’t deserve you being OK with this. I'm a fraud.”  
  
“Deek... “ She pulls his head up to hers, gets him in the eyes again. Her honey dancing in the light, hair a bit blood soaked against his cheek.  
“I’ve been saving this one for you … Top drawer” She smiles gentle, tender. Her voice is a little raspy. She should probably rest. _He should leave._  
  
He turns and opens the little bedside dresser. There’s only a book inside it, cover scuffed, title illegible. He thumbs to the first page with legible   
writing, printed by her messy hand in black ink is a quote, "We are healed from suffering, only by experiencing it to the full”  
  
He scans the rest. _Proust._  
She’s damn well found a copy of _In Search of Lost Time._  
Deacon fixes his gaze on her.  
  
“You’ve done more than enough to make up for what you did as a kid. I think Barbara would agree.” She smiles at him a little, gaunt and exhausted.  
  
_Maybe she was right?_  
_Maybe if he stuck with her long enough, he'd find redemption?_  
  
After so many years, his guilt had finally lead him to something good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.”


	37. Hell is Empty Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline's crusade finally comes to an end.

“All or nothing. That’s what this had to be from the beginning. Don’t make me a martyr for nothing Whisper…”  
Glory’s voice is behind something cold, distant. She speaks from a far away place Deacon recognises. He sees  
her mouth moving, sees tears rolling down Ro’s face, holding her hands like she can’t bare it.  
  
“My name is Caroline,” through the tears her voice is girlish, stricken with the impending loss. They’re almost  
out of stims. _Not that they’ve been working so far._ Glory has a foot through death's door already.

In slow motion, through the haze, Deacon fumbles for words “Glory, c’mon.” His own voice sounds far away,  
alien, ”You’re indestructible...”  
  
“D, this is it, man. The end of the line.” She winces through the pain, blood pooling under her body. “Promise me  
you’ll free them. All of them.” Ro has Glory’s hands in a vice grip. “I promise” she says with renewed conviction.  
Deacon nods at her. _Every last fucking one._  
  
In the dusty caverns of the under-croft, Brotherhood soldiers lie dead, strewn across the floor. Death by Hellfire,  
directly administered by the fiery hands of Glory. The two Valkyries lie crumpled together in the corner of the  
entrance, Ro’s heart breaking.  
  
“There’s … supposed to be … _a light_ …”  
  
Ro clammers for Glory’s face. “No. **_Nooo._** _No_ ” Her protests are low and ugly, racked with grief. She pumps Glory’s  
chest, breathes air into her lungs. Heavy tears roll over Caroline’s face, dripping down into the dead agent’s clothes.

He’d felt it the second she’d zapped into HQ that evening, landing on her knees. _This is it._ She couldn't get the words  
out quick enough. _It was D day._ Just like that. _The Brotherhood was coming …_  
  


* * *

Now Glory was dead and Tom was out in the field. And Deacon was in a goddam whirlybird in the sky, on a suicide  
mission to end all suicide missions. “Ugh. I’m gonna hurl, you guys.” He can’t stand the hovering. So high above the world.  
  
Caroline is deathly quiet, has been since Deacon had to drag her off Glory’s corpse. These are the end stages of her crusade  
and she must feel it in her bones. Her silent resolution makes him nervous …

Planting the explosives had been too easy, too straight-forward. With Caroline on such good terms with the Brotherhood,  
nobody had batted an eye-lid at her arrival. Her face was wrought with despair, with regret and sorrow. She had lingered at  
the entrance of the terrible steel blimp. A little too long.

Before they’d gotten back into the chopper, she’d looked at them all from the flight deck. A pain on her face that amidst the  
chaos, made Deacon want to hug her. Tell her she didn’t have to do any of this. He’d do it all for her.  
  
Looking over at her from his precarious seat in the whirlybird, her hair scraped back into the flight helmet, Deacon feels the  
weight of her decisions, _his_ decisions. As the Prydwyn is engulfed in flame and falls to the earth, he is again reminded of how  
far the Brotherhood has fallen.  
  
The Commonwealth vibrates violently, explosions rippling through the remains of the giant airship. Caroline is still, unmoving.  
She looks out to all the destruction she’s wrought, eyes dark, full of resolution.  
  


* * *

  
“Bye bye, birdy.” Deacon mumbles, more to himself, feet in the sand. The waves are loud and violent on the shore.

“Deacon, shut up.” She’s curt, abrupt with him. Her face is mixed with anger, disbelief. There’s a morality imbued in her tone  
that makes Deacon a little ashamed of himself. Nevermind BOS.  _How far had he sunk?_ They stand and watch the Prydwyn burn  
for awhile, Caroline seemingly assessing the gravity of the situation.  
  
“On to the next wave of mass murder then.” The line is a single blow. Delivered with force. _She's taken no glory in this triumph._

Deacon is quiet as Caroline retreats back into her head. Weapon heavy, ready in front of her. On the way back to HQ, anything  
in their path is annihilated with precision, no mercy.  
  
**_All or nothing._ **  
  
If she hadn't believed it before, she does now.  
  


* * *

 

 

 


	38. Hell is Empty Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Institute is finally destroyed.

They go over the plan in detail while they wait to get zapped in.  
  
Deacon is sick to his stomach.  _About to materialise into the Institute, to blow it all to hell._  It’s momentous,  _historical._  At  
the entrance, Caroline has her back to them, eyes on a cylindrical glass elevator at the centre of the room. As if she expects  
somebody to join them any minute now.  
  
She’s lost for a moment before Deacon’s voice finally reaches her. “Whisper. The pulser.” Her eyes are dark, she recoils at his  
touch. “Don’t call me that.” She takes the part, stuffs it into her bag. Her face is grave, buried in shadows.  
  
“Ro … You’re saving the world. You’re all good.” Deacon tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. In the hideous white  
lights, she looks so morose. Her hair still pulled up into the flight cap. Pieces trying to break free.  
  
From somewhere in her clouded mind, a smile creeps its way onto her face. She’s got her eyes burrowed into Deacon, initialising  
the deep scan once more. Her smile broadens, eyes clear. “Hey, I’ve got another one for you …"  
  
She swings her bag around, gun upright. Her stance changes, ready to move. “ _Hell is empty and the devils are here._ ”  
  
She steps forward, into the fray once more, one final stand against her greatest enemy. Deacon chuckles a little at her candour.  
Glad she’s not too stepped in whatever darkness is going on inside her.

They tear through main chambers, mowing down all the gen-2s in the way. Caroline is clear, level headed.  
  
Anyone without a weapon is evacuated, anyone who surrenders, apart from the SRB is sent upstairs to Dez for an interrogation,  
possibly freedom. Everyone is so clean.  _Their teeth sparkle._

Tom’s voice blasts through the facility overhead. “The director’s personal terminal. You understand? You’ve got to do that part yourself.”  
Caroline is stopped in her tracks, dread washing over her face. She turns to Deacon, looking fragile, vulnerable.  _Fear._   _It’s the first time  
he’s seen her wear it._  
  
Armed to the teeth with grenades in her pockets, he can’t reconcile the Caroline he knows with the one before him.  
“Your fear vs your commitment, remember.” Deacon's glad the phrase stuck. Her eyes light up a bit, boring through him. He can’t figure  
out what’s changing in her. Why she’s lost in her grip -  _Now,_  like she’s dead in the water.

As they round the foreboding spiral stairs to the top of the watchtower, Caroline slows a little, lingers at the door, looking at Deacon for  
help again. Her hand shakes a little. “Ro?” He doesn’t know what she’s so afraid of.  
  
 _She’s just blown up a blimp. S_ he can blow up a glorified bunker too.  
  
Under the white lights, the dark circles under her eyes seem deeper, blue and purple. The big beautiful curls tucked up make her face so  
completely visible. Pale and crippled with fear. She grasps blindly for the door handle. “My son is in here.”  
  
 _Oh._ **Oh shit.**  
  
She takes a breath. Steps inside lair of the devil himself.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The cleanliness is the real gut wrencher for Deacon. It’s clinical, the old man hooked up to an IV drip. He looks pale, half dead already. The  
folds of his skin are sallow. They hang like a husk about to be shed. Cheek bones that seem to pierce through his skin. Deacon can hardly  
see the resemblance at all with the old man in this state.  _ **But his eyes ...**  whiskey and honey._  _Just like Caroline._  
  
"I’m sorry." At his bedside, her voice is tiny.

"You cant be that sorry if you're here going through with it. Its not enough that I lay dying..." Shaun seems too exhausted to be truly furious.  
"Tell me then, under what righteous pretence have you justified this atrocity?"  
  
"The commonwealth deserves to determine their own fate." Even through the heartbreak, she is resolute.  
"You know as well as I, it's  _doomed_.  **You’ll ruin it all!**  Why are you even standing here, regret or just to gloat?" His voice is cold, so far removed  
from his mother. Caroline is shaking like a leaf, big tears brimming in her eyes again.  
  
"Only to say goodbye ... And that I'm sorry ... I couldn't save you sooner." On some maternal reflex, she strokes his decaying cheek with the  
back side of her soft fingers. Shaun strikes them away with vengeance. 

"Code 9003. ** _Go._**  Leave me!" The words are acid.  
Venom from the head of the serpent.  
  
Deacon has to pull her away. Her body stuck, mouth open in anguish.   
  
  


* * *

 

The rest of the mission is a blur for Caroline, in shock. She carries out the motions, does her duty but she's missing. Eye glazed over.   
She's somewhere far away. Somewhere Deacon can't pull her back from.   
  
 _Fillicide._  That's a rough one.  
  
Coming back up to Tom's level, in the elevator, Deacon holds her hand. She doesn't react to the touch.  
  
  


* * *

  
In the doorway, a kid in a white jumpsuit trembles a little. The words come out his mouth in a garble, all jumbled in panic.  
"Mom. Don't leave me here I wanna go with you."   
  
Ro is on her knees. She paws at the kid's face. She runs her fingers through his short sandy hair. Their eyes locked, both  
mother and son seem to be coming back from the brink. Ro has him clutched to her chest, hasn't said a word. Tears fall from  
her cheeks. Deacon can't understand what she must be feeling ; finally relieved or so utterly broken by the day's events?  
  
"Get us outta here, Tom." He looks at the tinker with a knowing glance. " _Time to let the devils burn."_

  
Standing behind the console, watching Tom clammer at the buttons, watching Ro clutch her synthetic child, Deacon can't get  
the image of the dying old man out his head. Shaun must've simply thought of them as roaches, raiding the cellar. If he wasn’t  
ill, he’d have smashed them with his boot.  
  
 _Caroline._  The snake was made in her womb.  _How could he have ever forgotten he was half of her?_  
  



	39. Once More Into the Breach

On the roof with the sun beating down on them, the centre of the city goes up in an enormous blast. Heat pummels   
them in waves. The earth vibrates and crashes around them. Tremors, ripples of violence.  
  
Caroline stands next to the switch she's just pulled, her head clear again. Her kid clutched at her side. She bends down   
to his level, kisses his forehead.   
  
She turns to Deacon, still quiet, stoic. A faint smile on her lips.   
"Thank you." She whispers  
  


* * *

  
  
The others eventually make their way down off the roof. Deacon, Ro and little Shaun stand looking out over the brand new   
hole in the Commonwealth. The kid holds his mother's hand, quietly assessing Deacon beside him. The same deep scan  
Caroline always gives him.  
  
Deacon smiles at her from under the glasses. "Some dusty old philosopher thought people were made of metals that defined   
their character. And you, my friend, are solid gold."   
  
She pulls Shaun closer to her, ruffles his hair. "I hadn't really thought what I'd do after all that. Got my kid, saved the day..."   
"Guess the synths will still need help after all this." She smiles down at her boy.  
  
"The 'Wealth will fall apart without you, Ro." Deacon smirks in her direction.  
  
"Off we go again," She smirks back, taking his had in hers. "Once more into the breach" 


	40. Young Grognak, the Barbarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaun isn't too happy with his name, wants a totally new life.

“Hey, kiddo. I’ve been thinking about something …” Caroline’s ruffling the little synth’s hair fondly as she sits   
down in the long grass next to him.

“You’re not really the Shaun I knew. You’re _new_ , my second chance ...” The kid looks up at her with big eyes,   
looking at her with all the hopeless desperation of a boy-robot reunited with his mom. "Do you feel like a Shaun?   
Like an old grey-haired man?” She’s watching him fiddle with some stray fronds on grass.   
  
He’s thinking about her line of thought, face peaceful. He had the same calmness about him Ro had. Deacon really   
liked the little guy so far. Even though the prototype part of his biology creeped him out a bit.

“Mmm,” he looks up at her, big hazel eyes “, I don’t want to be like the son you lost …” He buries his head into her   
shoulder, holds her hand tight. Those kind of kiddy-squishes that could snap your fingers in half.   
  
“I want to start new. In the real world with you”. Caroline pulls him in tight, squeezes him back. Together they both   
look so sunny, rosy skinned and freckles. Kiddo with his sandy mop of curls. Ro all nutmeg and cinnamon. In the grass,   
there's a warmth about them Deacon hasn’t felt in years.

“No more tests and cages. No more scary doctors.” Caroline rocks him back and forth gently, breathing in his hair, feeling   
his weight in her arms.   
  
“And nobody to turn you off when you don’t behave …” Deacon chimes in from behind them on the porch.   
They both turn to look at him.

“What do you think I should to be called?” Synth-Shaun asks, looking up at Deacon with a quiet severity.  
  
“Definitely Grognak the Barbarian.”   
  
Shaun smiles from ear to ear. Caroline laughs, deep and raspy. Ro-giggles, his favourite.   
  
“You’re gonna have to grow you hair out long and acquire an axe, but I think it’ll work. You’ve got that _rrrr_ look about you”  
  
Caroline’s Minuteman duster is laying on the workbench next to him. He grabs it, wraps it around his shoulders. Flaps his   
false giant wings at the kid, “C’mon Grognak, show this bat-baby what you got.” He sweeps down over the pair in the   
grass, swooping with menace. Shaun laughs, _for the first time_.   
  
The sound is so bizarre, so out of place. It carries out into the hills. Deacon and Caroline look at one another for a couple   
seconds in shock. The old world and the wasteland overlapping magnificently. He smiles at her, tears glistening in her eyes.   
_Happiness, not sadness. At last._  
  
“Take that, vile creature! Go back from wence you came!” Shaun smacks Deacon in the shins with a tree branch without much   
conviction. Deacon feigns agony, rolling in the grass at his feet. “Vanquished, by Grognak himslef.” He’s doing his best slowly   
dying, dramatic hands tableau, “What an honour, a privilege to die at your side.” His body goes limp at Caroline’s feet. Shaun   
is still laughing, now sitting down next to him.   
  
He seems to be lost in his thoughts again.  “Mom, what was dad’s name? “ He asks her.   
Ro smiles back at him, “Your dad was Cooper”. The kid disappears back into a reverie.   
  
“My dad’s name was Alfie, what about that?” Ro has her elbows propped up on her knees, sun behind her, all honey eyes.  
  
Shaun turns to Deacon, splayed on the floor like a bear rug, “What was your father’s name?” he asks him, in that painfully naiive   
way children do things. “James,” the name is blurted out just as stupidly.   
  
Caroline looks down at him with deep x-ray eyes, as if she’s seeing him for the first time. Deacon knows she can read him like a   
damn book, will know its the truth this time. His insides turn. _What has he done?  
_  
“I want to be James Alfie Crawford.” The little guy stands upright, stern, quiet, intense eyes. “That’s who I’m going to be now.”  
Ro holds out her hands, reels him back into her motherly embrace, runs her hands through his hair. “It’s perfect, kiddo.”   
  
She closes her eyes in the sunshine, stuck in some perfect moment.   
  
Deacon has lost a solid layer of his disguises. In the moment, he feels tripped bare, horribly naked in front of the two of them.   
_How things_ _come full circle. How they fall apart. Come back together._   
  
_Was that it?_ Life. The point of going through it all over again. After all this time.   
He’s aware Ro’s eyes are on him, deep scanning the frabic of his being. He feels like a live wire, frayed, bare. So close to the edge   
of something that terrifies him. In the sun behind the postcard perfect house they must look so damn civilian.

_He can’t figure out if any of it is real anymore. How it could ever be._


	41. The Lone Wanderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have already saved the world. All there is / left to save is each other.  
> — Natalie Wee

“ ** _Deacon!_** ” They argue in her driveway, under the porch, _always the porch_. He’s finally managed to break it to her.   
He’s going back under the knife, not sure who he’ll be, where he’ll go. But he’ll see her again.   
  
With the Institute gone, they still had work to do. Loose ends to tie off … He had to find another cause. Couldn't settle.  
“Stay. With me.” Her eyes are stern, her hand on his cheek is warm. He recoils. “You don't have to do it all alone anymore.”  
  
“You know **everyone is in love with you?** Hancock, Mac, hell probably even Trashcan Carla” Deacon is yelling at her, doesnt   
mean to but it’s happening. His voice is colder than he’d like it to be. Her face is still, a little pang of sadness in it. It infuriates him.   
  
“You trot all over the goddam Commonwealth with your manners and your curls, never changing, never compromising … and every   
goddam fool along the way falls in love with you.” He’s lost his cool, doesn’t really know where the rant is going, what he means.   
Its been bubbling inside him for days now.   
  
In the aftermath of her success, he’s been bugging out. “You have your pick of the litter, Caroline Crawford. You’re better than me.   
At the _hero thing … You …_ ” His voice is getting shaky, quieter at least, but wavering. “You deserve more than all this bullshit.”  
  
Deacon paces the porch, running his hand over the fresh stubble growing from his head. He feels the blood boil in his veins, agitated,   
_not at her_. He doesn’t want to take it out on her. After everything, all these months …  
  
The wind rustles the leaves on the floor, orange whirlwind at their feet. Sanctuary is still, peaceful as ever. A chill in the air as cloud   
rolls over in the sky ahead. Deacon turns on his heels, _fuck it. Fuck it all._ He moves down the road. _Can’t drag her down with him one  
last time._  
  
Into the wind, on his own, _the lone wanderer_ …  
  
“I know who you are”, Caroline’s voice drifts down the hill, soft but clear. He turns to look at her. Under the awning, the wind blows her   
hair lightly. Her eyes are soft, serious. “And I don’t care.”  
  
Deacon smiles despite his fury, imagining the story she’s built up inside her. _One last attempt._ Always a valiant effort. He was glad his   
last memory of her would be another of their games. Her face isn’t teasing him however and he wonders if the deadpan expression is   
just a build up to a _really great punchline._  
  
“I’ve never believed a thing you said. Ever.” She shifts a little uncomfortably, squeezing her knuckles. The white t shirt she’s got on drifts   
a little in the breeze. She folds her arms against the chill “Not about the Deathclaws … or Barbara. Well, not her name and not the circumstances.   
I think that story was true about somebody else, against a bigger enemy.”   
  
Deacon’s mouth is dry, quiet, closed. He listens, insides in a knot.   
  
“I know you aren’t a synth“ She turns to pull something out a leather satchel. Slowly, he makes his way back up to her. Sanctuary is eerily quiet.   
Not a settler insight.  
  
“I have never judged you on your words, Deacon. Your lies don’t bother me. Only your actions. They speak louder - are most truthful” She looks   
as uncomfortable as he suddenly feels. His insides churn and grind. Nausea builds within him. _How long? How long has she known?_  
  
On the porch before him, she holds something in her hands, blue, dirty, very old and worn, tightly bundled in her fists. He can hear his heart beat   
in his ears as she hands it to him.   
  
The fabric unfurls, deep blue, yellow vinyl numbers shimmer in the light for five seconds before he sees the number.   
Inside, he’s gone numb, gravity pulling him down, he feels weak.  
  
  


**101.**   
  
  


“I’ll never tell your secret, Liam Holden.”  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Deacon can’t breathe. Is paralysed.   
The world turns on its axis, slow and debilitating, too heavy, too much …  
  
He crashes to his knees on Caroline’s porch. She gets down there with him, always respectfully quiet when she needed to be. Intuitive,   
empathetic. His heart aches. Ro, all curls and honey. _How had she found out?_ After all these years  
  
He closes his eyes, head down in his lap. He inhales the tatty uniform. Let’s it all flow back. Amata, his father, Sarah …  
  
“You’re running from the legacy of something that’s ended, ended years ago.” She pulls her hands up under his ears, takes his glasses off.   
Collapsed in front of her house, her voice is so soft. They must look like fools. She’s still got her thumbs pressed pressed firmly against his   
cheekbones, pulling him up. He can’t open his eyes, afraid he’ll fall to pieces at the sight of her.   
  
When he finally does she’s so close he can feel her breath, see her freckles, her hazel eyes. Raindrops fall on her cheeks, big, bright. They   
dance between all the other beautiful blemishes she has. Her hair grazes his face as it all falls forward, vaguely smelling of mutfruit, it’s soft.   
His heart flickers. She inhales slowly, breathing him in, _inches away._   
  
She leans closer still, grazes his lips, they breathe each other in. She kisses him with an open mouth, with a tongue, warm, searching for him.   
He feels detached from his body, drifting off somewhere real.  
  
In the street. On the floor. Through the honey, he kisses her back. In the rain, he runs his hand up the back of her head, through her amber   
curls. Open mouthed, hot kisses he understands how long she’s been wanting to do this. How long he's wanted to. Her back arches to his touch.   
His face is melting right off the bone.   
  
Her hands are holding his face, tightly, her fingers woven between his ears. He’s so lost in the kiss, he forgets about anything else. _He loves her._   
He’s loved her for awhile now. Maybe from the moment she barged into Railroad HQ with fucking Dogmeat at her side.   
  
He wants to cry, wants her to never stop, for this to be the rest of his life … She pulls away, still holding his gaze, her voice a whisper ...   
  
“I love you, Deacon.”  
  
Tears pool in his eyes and he smiles through them. The rain down on them, drenches her hair, slipping over her eyes, he pushes it away,   
“And I you, Caralyn-Audrey Hayworth”   
  
She grins at him through the wet curls. A laugh begins to ripple through her, little crescendos of Ro-giggles.   
He can;t bear it. Everything so sticky sweet.   
  
He smirks at her, “So. Can you do that whole kissing thing again. I got something in my eye and missed the whole thing?”   
  


* * *

 

  
He has to get her up in his arms, through the door of the old Postcard house, to her room where they undress clumsily. Deacon smiling at her   
through the honey, Ro still rumbling low and beautiful Ro-giggles.  
  
On the bed, they tumble like newly weds. Deacon kisses her stomach, rosy and freckled. The patches of vitiligo spread across her belly. White,   
milky. He’s distracted by how beautiful all the patterns are. She lifts his hands up with hers, fingers pressed against his.   
  
“Hey," His head on her belly, he says in his own little whisper, smiling back at her. “I’ve got one for you this time”   
Her eyes are full of something he’s only ever really dreamed about.   
  
“I have built deep in my heart,” he rolls his hand up her cheek, “A chapel filled with you.”   
She laughs, unromantic and brutish, “Proust!” The smile on her face kills him a little. _Wonderful creature._   
  
“Never leave me, lover-boy” she hold his chin in her hand.   
“Never.” Deacon means it.   
  
She kisses him again. The rain on the roof above him is soft, tranquil.  
Deacon is happy, woven between her hair, her fingers, her legs.   
  
_Deacon feels at home._  
  
Outside the vault suit floats down the road in the small slipstream of rain, slowly disappearing down river, becoming part of the Commonwealth.   
  
_Just debri and an old memory …_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!   
> I know it was very fragmented. I'd hoped it would all come together in this last chapter.
> 
> Hopefully it's worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> And when two people have loved each other  
> see how it is like a scar between their bodies  
> stronger, darker, and proud;  
> how the black cord makes of them a single fabric  
> that nothing can tear or mend.
> 
> \- For What Binds Us by Jane Hirshfield


End file.
